Zoomi Life

The latest issue of Science has a lot of electric vehicle — especially hydrogen — stuff going on in it’s pages. The announcement of a new fuel cell breakthrough was also followed by something from the other end of the line: a new water-splitting approach that could make splitting water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen easier.

This new approach was developed by Professor David Milstein and his colleagues at the Organic Chemistry Department of the Wezmann Institute.  The approach splits, as it were, the sequence of water molecule division into consecutive thermal and light-driven steps.  A special ruthenium metal complex developed by Milstein is used to mediate the process.

The metal complex can be recycled for continued use and no waste products are created.  Basically, the water is mixed with the ruthenium complex, heated, hydrogen is captured, then the water is cooled back to room temperature and the oxygen releases, leaving only the metals.

The process is more complex than I’ve described here, of course, but it’s a breakthrough in that it is a possible way to replace electrolysis as the means of achieving hydrogen production. Of course, the heating of the water will use energy as well, so critics remain dubious of the overall usefulness of the process.

For more information on the process, visit Green Car Congress’ great writeup.  For now, this probably won’t replace our usual means of hydrogen production and it’s not likely that this process would replace smaller-scale production such as those done in Honda’s Hydrogen Home concept with PV panels supplying the power.  It may be a first step towards a more sustainable large-scale hydrogen production concept, however.