Nicholas Bedford1
University of New South Wales1
Nicholas Bedford1
University of New South Wales1
Water electrolysis and photoelectrochemical water splitting provide a means to generate energy in the form of H<sub>2</sub>. This well-studied electrolysis reaction is comprised of two half-reactions, the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and the oxygen evolution reaction (OER). Though the promise of converting water into energy is of obvious technological benefit, water electrolysis as its pitfalls. For optimal conversion, chemically pure alkaline or acidic water is desired to mitigate unwanted side reactions, limiting use in areas where clean water is readily abundant. Even more detrimental is the required overpotential needed for the OER reaction, which increases the power needed solely for the purpose of generation ubiquitous O<sub>2</sub> to complete total water electrolysis.<br/> <br/>To circumvent these issues with sustainable H<sub>2</sub> generation from water, our research group has recently began focusing on using biomass and wastewater sources for water electrolysis. By creating catalysts that are stabile under wastewater-like conditions, were further maximize H<sub>2</sub> generation by replacing OER with electrocatalytic oxidation of the organic compounds that occur at much lower overpotentials. Thus, H<sub>2</sub> is generated via HER with the H<sup>+</sup> obtained from the oxidized organic, providing a means to also generated value added chemicals instead of O<sub>2</sub>. For this construct to successful work, innovated catalysts design approaches must be performed in tandem with fundamental structural studies at the atomic scale to develop a methodology to create catalyst for a wide variety of wastewater sources. <br/> <br/>This talk will focus on our groups recent work in implementing pilot scale electrolysis cells for wastewater electrolysis coupled with fundamental studies using synchrotron radiation capabilities to better understand structure/function relationships in our catalysts. An emphasis will be made on our efforts using in-situ X-ray techniques to monitor structural changes of catalytic materials under reaction conditions in this talk to showcase the needed to correlate changes at the atomic scale with catalytic properties. The presented work is expected to find applications in clean energy generation and customized commodity chemical reactivity.