Effect of Infrared Oxide Catalysts on Water Splitting for Green Energy

Abstract

AbstractTo achieve an efficient conversion of renewable energy sources through water splitting, low‐cost, efficient, and eco‐friendly catalysts are required for oxygen and hydrogen evolution. Herein, we demonstrate that infrared (IR) irradiating oxide catalysts improve the evolution efficiency of H2 and O2 gases by approximately 3.4 times that of the conventional method. This indicates that the IR oxide catalysts contribute to lowering the energy required to break the interatomic covalent bonds in the water molecule (H2O) through stretching and bending vibrations, thus facilitating the efficient evolution of H2 and O2 gases. A comparison between the IR oxide catalysts and a catalyst‐free 6 M KOH solution showed that the former requires a shorter duration (11 min) compared to the 37 min required by the catalyst‐free 6 M KOH solution for the evolution of 500 cc of O2 and H2 gases. For the system containing the IR oxide catalyst, the power consumption was 6 Wh for 1 L of H2 gas evolution, whereas the catalyst‐free system consumed 23 Wh of power. This four‐times lower power consumption, using the IR oxide catalyst indicates a promising method for the mass production of O2 and H2 gases. These results indicate that IR oxides can be used as an efficient and eco‐friendly thermal radiation catalyst for green hydrogen and renewable energy applications.