Converting Sewage Water into H2 Fuel Gas Using Cu/CuO Nanoporous Photocatalytic Electrodes.

N M A Hadia,Mohamed Rabia,Ahmed Adel A Abdelazeez,S H Mohamed,Ali Hajjiah,Meshal Alzaid,Mohamed Shaban,Bram Hoex

doi:10.3390/ma15041489

Abstract

This work reports on H2 fuel generation from sewage water using Cu/CuO nanoporous (NP) electrodes. This is a novel concept for converting contaminated water into H2 fuel. The preparation of Cu/CuO NP was achieved using a simple thermal combustion process of Cu metallic foil at 550 °C for 1 h. The Cu/CuO surface consists of island-like structures, with an inter-distance of 100 nm. Each island has a highly porous surface with a pore diameter of about 250 nm. X-ray diffraction (XRD) confirmed the formation of monoclinic Cu/CuO NP material with a crystallite size of 89 nm. The prepared Cu/CuO photoelectrode was applied for H2 generation from sewage water achieving an incident to photon conversion efficiency (IPCE) of 14.6%. Further, the effects of light intensity and wavelength on the photoelectrode performance were assessed. The current density (Jph) value increased from 2.17 to 4.7 mA·cm−2 upon raising the light power density from 50 to 100 mW·cm−2. Moreover, the enthalpy (ΔH*) and entropy (ΔS*) values of Cu/CuO electrode were determined as 9.519 KJ mol−1 and 180.4 JK−1·mol−1, respectively. The results obtained in the present study are very promising for solving the problem of energy in far regions by converting sewage water to H2 fuel.

Highlights

Photocatalytic materials represent an important class of components for potential applications in renewable-energy-related fields such as solar cells, optoelectronic, and photocatalytic H2 production [1,2,3,4]
The production of H2 gas from sewage water is a very promising field of renewable energy. This process provides H2 gas fuel for different uses of normal life such as cooking and warming, especially in remote regions inside deserts or rural areas. This H2 gas is used as a fuel for airplanes and aircrafts, in addition to its normal utilization in industrial factories and companies
This study provides the H2 gas fuel from the contamination without using any additional electrolyte

Summary

Introduction

The production of H2 gas from sewage water is a very promising field of renewable energy. This process provides H2 gas fuel for different uses of normal life such as cooking and warming, especially in remote regions inside deserts or rural areas. Prepared graphite carbon nitride and decorated this material with CuO for photocatalyst application, and studied the effect of CuO for increasing the efficiency of the catalytic reaction and H2 generation, but the rate of H2 generation was small [25]. Cu/CuO photocathode, prepared by an oxidation/combustion process, was evaluated for H2 production from a sewage water-splitting reaction without using any sacrificing agent. 1 cm of the Cu/CuO was as electrode for hydrogen generation under wastewater splitting

Methods

Results and

Conclusions