SIMS2015 Session RE-ThP: Renewable Energy and Energy Storage Poster Session
Thursday, September 17, 2015 5:20 PM in Grand Ballroom III
Thursday Afternoon
Time Period ThP Sessions | Topic RE Sessions | Time Periods | Topics | SIMS2015 Schedule
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RE-ThP-1 Effective Hydrogen Evolution Reaction Based on Plasmon-Activated Water
Bing-Joe Hwang (National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taiwan, Republic of China); Hsiao-Chien Chen (Taipei Medical University); Yu-Chuan Liu (Taipei Medical University, Taiwan, Republic of China) Due to growing environmental pollution, renewable fuels, such as hydrogen, are being considered as clean energy sources. Splitting water for hydrogen production using light, or electrical energy, is the most developed ‘green technique’. To improve the energy conversion efficiency, i.e. utilizing the hydrogen produced from water, much effort is being directed towards finding efficient and inexpensive catalysts. However, the role and nature of water is commonly ignored. Water has a tetrahedral structure with two O-H bonds that enable it to form a flexible dynamic hydrogen-bonded network. The fact that increasing the electrolysis temperature can lower the electrolysis voltage for electrolysis and that small water clusters (SWC) water has a more disordered structure with weaker hydrogen bonds at evaluated temperatures has inspired us to use SWC, for efficient hydrogen evolution. Here we report catalyst-free hydrogen evolution using SWC with weak hydrogen bonding prepared utilizing the localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) of illuminated Au nanoparticles (NPs). This strategy is facile and mass-producible. The interactions of weakly bonded SWC are responsible for the hydrogen evolution in water splitting, confirmed by cyclic voltammetry (CV) and linear sweep voltammetry (LSV). Compared to bulk water, the efficiency for hydrogen evolution is increased by ca. 17 and 48 % based on SWC, prepared using fluorescent lamp or green light-emitting diode (LED) illumination, respectively. Moreover, the raised energy efficiencies from SWC (green LED illumination) compared to bulk water are 18, 16 and 14 % at specific current yields of -20, -30 and -40 mA, respectively.To our best knowledge, this is the first literature report of the promise offered by SWC for efficient hydrogen production. |