by Robert Schreiber
Gothenburg, Sweden (SPX) Jan 08, 2026
Hydrogen is seen as a central vitality service in future low carbon programs as a result of its use produces solely water, however giant scale deployment nonetheless depends upon cleaner and extra ample manufacturing strategies. A group led by Chalmers College of Know-how in Sweden now studies a photocatalytic strategy that generates hydrogen fuel from water and daylight with out utilizing the scarce and expensive metallic platinum, as an alternative counting on tiny particles of electrically conductive plastic often called conjugated polymer nanoparticles.
The researchers describe how these polymer nanoparticles, when dispersed in water, soak up mild and work together with their environment to drive hydrogen evolution. By tailoring the fabric properties on the molecular stage, they improved the compatibility of the conjugated polymer with water, which is generally a limitation for this class of semiconducting plastics.
“Growing environment friendly photocatalysts with out platinum has been a long-standing dream on this area. By making use of superior supplies design to our conducting-plastic particles, we are able to produce hydrogen effectively and sustainably with out platinum – at radically decrease price, and with efficiency that may even surpass platinum-based programs”, says Holmes, who along with Jingwen Pan from Jiefang Zhu’s group at Uppsala College, is the joint first writer of the paper.
The group studies that the important thing advance lies within the design of extra hydrophilic, loosely packed polymer chains contained in the nanoparticles, which reinforces interactions with water and boosts the sunshine to hydrogen conversion course of. In a laboratory reactor at Chalmers, these particles generate seen streams of hydrogen bubbles beneath simulated daylight, offering direct proof of environment friendly photocatalysis.
When a lamp offering simulated photo voltaic radiation illuminates a beaker of water containing the nanoparticles, hydrogen bubbles kind virtually instantly and rise by way of the liquid earlier than being collected and routed by way of tubing to a storage container, the place the fuel quantity might be tracked in actual time. With one gram of the polymer materials, the system can produce about 30 liters of hydrogen per hour beneath these circumstances, demonstrating a considerable manufacturing price for a platinum free photocatalyst.
The work additionally builds on a separate advance from Chalmers colleagues displaying that the identical class of electrically conductive plastic might be synthesized with out dangerous chemical substances and at decrease price, which additional helps its use in scalable vitality applied sciences. The researchers emphasize that eradicating platinum from the system addresses not solely price and useful resource constraints but in addition environmental and well being dangers related to mining and refining the metallic, whose manufacturing is concentrated in a small variety of international locations resembling South Africa and Russia.
The following purpose for the Chalmers group is to remove the necessity for sacrificial helper chemical substances in order that hydrogen manufacturing can rely solely on daylight and water. Within the present experiments, vitamin C acts as a sacrificial antioxidant, donating electrons to stop the response from stalling and permitting excessive hydrogen evolution charges within the lab, however it isn’t a sustainable enter for giant scale operation.
To realize absolutely sustainable photo voltaic hydrogen, analysis chief Ergang Wang explains that the system should cut up water into hydrogen and oxygen concurrently, with no components aside from water itself. “Eradicating the necessity for platinum on this system is a vital step in the direction of sustainable hydrogen manufacturing for society. Now we’re beginning to discover supplies and methods geared toward attaining total water splitting with out components. That may want a couple of extra years, however we imagine we’re heading in the right direction”, says analysis chief Ergang Wang, professor on the Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering at Chalmers.
The scientific article studies that the photocatalyst is predicated on low price conjugated polymer nanoparticles and that its efficiency can match or exceed many current platinum containing programs, whereas additionally benefiting from extra benign synthesis routes. The research additionally notes that the work concerned researchers from a number of establishments in Sweden, Brazil, China and the US, and that funding got here from the Swedish Analysis Council, Formas, the Swedish Vitality Company and the Wallenberg Foundations.
A background part of the discharge explains that electrically conductive plastics, or conjugated polymers, are natural semiconductors analogous to inorganic supplies resembling silicon and kind the premise of natural electronics utilized in vitality conversion, storage, wearable gadgets, digital textiles and bioelectronics. The invention that some plastics can conduct electrical energy dates again to the Seventies and led to the 2000 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for Alan J. Heeger, Alan G. MacDiarmid and Hideki Shirakawa.
One other background part outlines hydrogen’s position as an vitality service that may transport, retailer and provide vitality, and that it may be produced from fossil, fossil free or renewable sources. Hydrogen is already used worldwide to retailer photo voltaic and wind vitality, to assist make properties vitality self sustaining and as a transport gasoline that doesn’t emit dangerous exhaust gases, which underlines why extra sustainable manufacturing strategies resembling polymer based mostly photocatalysis are being pursued.
Analysis Report:Extremely Environment friendly Platinum-Free Photocatalytic Hydrogen Evolution From Low-cost Conjugated Polymer Nanoparticles
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Chalmers College of Know-how
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