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Converting Sewage Water into H2 Fuel Gas Using Cu/CuO Nanoporous Photocatalytic Electrodes
- Source :
- Materials, Vol 15, Iss 4, p 1489 (2022)
- Publication Year :
- 2022
- Publisher :
- MDPI AG, 2022.
-
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.
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 19961944
- Volume :
- 15
- Issue :
- 4
- Database :
- Directory of Open Access Journals
- Journal :
- Materials
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- edsdoj.2b53297eab542548656330eb1936e6b
- Document Type :
- article
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.3390/ma15041489