HZB Makes H2 With Fool’s Gold

Dean Sigler Electric Powerplants, Sustainable Aviation Leave a Comment

Hydrogen, two atoms of which are in every molecule of water, is wildly abundant, but elusive to extract for our transportation needs.  Common means of pulling the H2 from the H2O used fossil fuels, and thus negate the good intentions for its use.  Several people have tried cleaner means of “splitting water,” including Daniel Nocera of MIT and Harvard, and researchers around the world, including those in the Netherlands and Germany.  One notable recent accomplishment at the HZB (Helmholtz Zentrum Berlin) Institute for Solar Fuels involves a new composite photocathode that generates H2 “with high quantum efficiency” using sunlight. The Institute says, “The photocathode consists of a thin film of chalcopyrite produced by HZB/PVcomB coated with a newly developed thin film of photo-resistant titanium dioxide (TiO2) containing platinum nanoparticles.” Of course your editor, who wishes he had taken better notes in chemistry class, Googled the unfamiliar term.  A University of Michigan note on CuFeS2 – Copper Iron Sulfide explains, “Chalcopyrite was …