Study develops on previous work utilizing ‘chemical looping.’
Scientists have actually discovered a brand-new chemical procedure to turn a smelly, hazardous gas into a clean-burning fuel.
The procedure, detailed just recently in the American Chemical Society journal A/C Sustainable Chemical Engineering, turns hydrogen sulfide– more typically called “sewer gas”– into hydrogen fuel. Hydrogen sulfide is released from manure stacks and drain pipelines and is an essential by-product of commercial activities consisting of refining oil and gas, producing paper and mining.
The procedure detailed in this research study utilizes fairly little energy and a fairly inexpensive product– the chemical iron sulfide with a trace quantity of molybdenum as an additive.
In addition to smelling like rotten eggs, hydrogen sulfide is extremely hazardous, rusting pipelines and damaging the health of individuals who experience it.
“Hydrogen sulfide is one of the most harmful gases in industry and to the environment,” stated Lang Qin, a co-author on the research study and a research study partner in chemical and biomolecular engineering at The Ohio StateUniversity “And because the gas is so harmful, a number of researchers want to turn hydrogen sulfide into something that is not so harmful, preferably valuable.”
Researchers have actually discovered a method to turn a hazardous gas into a clean-burning fuel. Their procedure includes including the component molybdenum to break the gas into different components.
The research study is developed on previous work by the very same research study group utilizing a procedure called chemical looping, which includes including metal oxide particles in high-pressure reactors to burn fuels without direct contact in between air and fuel. The group initially utilized chemical looping on coal and shale gas to transform nonrenewable fuel sources into electrical energy without releasing co2 into the environment. The preliminary procedure utilized iron oxide to break down the nonrenewable fuel sources.
The scientists later on used the idea to hydrogen sulfide and created the SULGEN procedure, which transforms hydrogen sulfide into hydrogen. The scientists discovered that the pure chemical, iron sulfide, didn’t carry out well at the big scales required for commercial usage, Qin stated. The research study group has actually been attempting to determine other economical chemicals that might catalyze that change in greater amounts. This research study reveals that presenting a trace quantity of molybdenum into iron sulfide may be an appealing alternative.
That product is fairly economical and simple to get, making it an appealing alternative for larger-scale operations.
Transforming this hazardous gas into hydrogen fuel develops an alternative oil and gas, which are significant factors to environment modification, the scientists stated.
“It is too soon to tell if our research can replace any of the hydrogen fuel production technologies that are out there,” stated Kalyani Jangam, lead author of the research study and a college student in Ohio State’s Clean Energy ResearchLaboratory “But what we are doing is adjusting this decomposition process and making a valuable product from that.”
For this latest research study, the scientists discovered that molybdenum enhances the breakdown of hydrogen sulfide, splitting it into 2 parts– hydrogen fuel and sulfur.
This work is early in the clinical procedure– the scientists revealed that the procedure operated in the laboratory; tests at the commercial level are upcoming.
“The big picture is we want to solve the harmful gas issue, and we thought that our chemical looping process would allow that,” Qin stated. “And here, we have found a way to do it in the lab that creates this value-added hydrogen fuel.”
Reference: “Mo-Doped FeS Mediated H 2 Production from H 2 S by means of an In Situ Cyclic Sulfur Looping Scheme” by Kalyani Jangam, Yu-Yen Chen, Lang Qin and Liang-Shih Fan, 12 August 2021, A/C Sustainable Chemical Engineering
DOI: 10.1021/ acssuschemeng.1 c03410
The senior author on this paper is Liang-Shih Fan, teacher of chemical and biomolecular engineering at OhioState Yu-Yen Chen, a previous doctoral trainee in Fan’s lab, likewise contributed.
