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Producing hydrogen with rust and sunlight

Researchers at the Tokyo University of Science have found goethite, a common type of rust, can be used as a catalyst to speed up solar-powered hydrogen production. The group says further optimization could enable their process to eliminate the need for the costly, rare catalysts currently used.

The method proposed by the Tokyo group uses a common type of rust – goethite (α-FeOOH) – as a catalyst to speed up the hydrogen production from a water-methanol solution, instead of the more commonly used – and expensive – titanium dioxide.

The results obtained by the Japanese team, published in Chemistry: A European Journal, indicated the use of goethite generated 25 times more hydrogen from the light produced by a mercury-xenon lamp in a laboratory scale device than from titanium dioxide catalysis. The researchers reported the process remained stable and continued to produce hydrogen for 400 hours.