Sargent Group

'A fresh strategy': U of T researchers discover low-cost way to produce hydrogen from water

Christopher.Sorensen — Thu, 13 Dec 2018 17:49:34 +0000

'A fresh strategy': U of T researchers discover low-cost way to produce hydrogen from water

Christopher.Sorensen Thu, 12/13/2018 - 12:49

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Researchers in U of T's Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering have discovered a new catalyst that lowers the amount of electricity required to split water into hydrogen and oxygen under pH-neutral conditions (photo by Tyler Irving)

Tyler Irving

Topic

Global Lens

Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering

Research & Innovation

Sargent Group

Sustainable Energy

A new catalyst developed by University of Toronto researchers could make it cheaper and easier to produce hydrogen from water – a process some say is key to storing energy from renewable, but intermittent, sources like solar and wind.

The new catalyst, developed in the lab of University Professor Ted Sargent, uses abundant, low-cost elements to split water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen under conditions like those found in ordinary seawater.

That, in turn, could make it feasible to use renewable electricity to produce hydrogen from water and then later reverse the process in an electrochemical fuel cell, resulting in clean power on demand.

“Hydrogen is a hugely important industrial feedstock, but unfortunately today it is derived overwhelmingly from fossil fuels, resulting in a large carbon footprint,” says Sargent, who is the senior author of a paper in Nature Energy that describes the new catalyst.

“Electrolysis – water splitting to produce renewable hydrogen and oxygen – is a compelling technology, but it needs further improvements in efficiency, cost, and longevity.

“This work offers a fresh strategy to pursue these critically important aims."

Pelayo Garcia De Arquer (left) and Cao Thang Dinh (right) examine a wafer coated in their new catalyst (photo by Tyler Irving)

Sargent’s lab, in U of T's Edward S. Rogers Sr. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, is among several research groups around the world racing to create catalysts that lower the amount of electricity needed to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. Currently, the best-performing catalysts rely on platinum, a high-cost material, and operate under acidic conditions.

“Our new catalyst is made from copper, nickel and chromium, which are all more abundant and less costly than platinum,” says Cao Thang Dinh, a co-lead author on the paper along with his fellow postdoctoral researchers Pelayo Garcia De Arquer and Ankit Jain.

“But what’s most exciting is that it performs well under pH-neutral conditions, which opens up a number of possibilities.”

Seawater, for example, is the most abundant source of water on earth, Dinh points out. But using seawater with traditional catalysts under acidic conditions would require the salt to be removed first, an energy-intensive process. Operating at neutral pH avoids the high cost of desalination.

It could also enable the use of microorganisms to make chemicals such as methanol and ethanol. “There are bacteria that can combine hydrogen and CO2 to make hydrocarbon fuels,” says Garcia De Arquer. “They could grow in the same water and take up the hydrogen as it’s being made, but they cannot survive under acidic conditions.”

Using renewable energy to convert waste CO2 into fuels or other value-added products is the goal of the NRG COSIA Carbon XPrize. A team from Sargent’s lab is among the five finalists in the international competition, vying for a US$7.5-million grand prize.

In the paper, the team reports that the “overpotential” achieved with the new catalyst – the amount of electrical energy required to liberate the hydrogen from water – is the lowest ever observed under neutral conditions, though it still lags behind traditional platinum catalysts operated at acidic conditions.

“Creating hydrogen from water under neutral conditions is inherently tough – it’s like trying to make an ice sculpture on a sunny day,” says Phil De Luna, a PhD candidate in materials science and engineering and another of the study’s co-authors.

“As far as we know, this catalyst is the best way to do it.”

U of T startup QD Solar secures international financing

lanthierj — Tue, 14 Feb 2017 13:17:43 +0000

U of T startup QD Solar secures international financing

lanthierj Tue, 02/14/2017 - 08:17

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Ted Sargent (photo by Roberta Baker, courtesy Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering)

Topic

Global Lens

Research and Innovation

Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering

Nanotechnology

QD Solar, a Canadian startup co-founded by U of T researchers Ted Sargent and Sjoerd Hoogland, has received a big boost in funding and an important international nod to help bring its solar technology to market.

On Monday, the company announced it had closed its first significant round of venture capital financing led by DSM Venturing, based in the Netherlands, with participation from existing investors, KAUST Innovation Fund and MaRS Innovation.

Coupled with the $2.55 million the company received from Sustainable Development Technology Canada last March, QD Solar “has the resources to advance, develop, test and de-risk our solar technology, while concurrently developing the manufacturing processes needed to bring this technology to market,” said Dan Shea, CEO of QD Solar and a former senior executive with Celestica and BlackBerry, in a news release.

QD Solar’s quantum dot-based solar cells use nano-engineered, low-cost materials that can absorb otherwise wasted infrared light. Solar panels with this technology can boost their overall power generation by 20 per cent, the company says.

In the future, QD Solar says, it intends to develop quantum dot-based solar material that can be applied to any flexible surface to generate energy.

The technology was developed in labs at U of T by Sargent, a University Professor in the Edward S. Rogers Sr. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at U of T and Canada Research Chair in Nanotechnology, and Hoogland, director of research, technology and innovation at the Sargent Group.

“We’re delighted to see QD Solar and this novel technology created at the University of Toronto receive this substantial investment from Canadian and international sources to advance their bold vision for a new clean energy product,” said Derek Newton, U of T’s assistant vice–president of innovation, partnerships and entrepreneurship.

The startup was supported by MaRS Innovation and U of T’s Innovations & Partnership Office, which provided seed funding, patent protection and helped the company meet international industry partners and investors.

Since 2011, U of T researchers have created more than 830 inventions, founded more than 90 research-based startups and generated $49 million from licensing revenues.

U of T team advances to next round of Carbon XPRIZE competition

ullahnor — Wed, 23 Nov 2016 22:08:22 +0000

U of T team advances to next round of Carbon XPRIZE competition

ullahnor Wed, 11/23/2016 - 17:08

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Alexander Ip and his U of T research team, led by Professor Ted Sargent has advanced to the second round of the $20-million Carbon XPRIZE competition (photo by Kevin Soobrian)

Kevin Soobrian

Author legacy

Kevin Soobrian

Topic

Breaking Research

Research & Innovation

Sargent Group

Ted Sargent

Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering

Sustainability

Energy

A team of researchers led by Professor Ted Sargent has moved on to the second round of the $20-million NRG COSIA Carbon XPRIZE. The international competition challenges teams to capture carbon-dioxide (CO2), a climate-warming greenhouse gas, from natural gas or coal power plant fuel emissions and convert it into valuable products.

U of T’s multidisciplinary team, called Carbon Electrocatalytic Recycling Toronto (CERT), submitted a technique they developed earlier this year to convert CO2 to carbon-monoxide using electrocatalysis. For the competition entry, the team has altered that technique by using nanoparticle-based catalysts to produce formic acid, a substance commonly used as a preservative for animal feed and within the textile industry.

“Basically, you take some of the hydrogen from water and connect it into your CO2 molecule to make your formic acid,” says Alexander Ip, director of research and partnerships for the Sargent Group. “But you can do different things. In principle, you can make any carbon-based product. The challenge is having the right materials to be able to selectively get what you want.”

Read about the technique the team developed earlier this year

Ip also noted that the method could be instrumental in closing the carbon cycle. Sargent and an international team of collaborators developed a highly efficient method for storing energy in chemical form earlier this year, raising the potential for intermittent, renewable power sources like solar and wind. This clean and renewable electricity is then used to capture and convert CO2 into an asset.

“One thing that is emerging right now that we think is interesting is using formic acid as a hydrogen fuel cell material,” says Ip.

Instead of storing a gas in pressurized tanks, hydrogen is stored within the formic acid liquid and released from there. This allows hydrogen to be safely stored and easily transported in a liquid form.

“It’s less developed, but we think it’s a way that the formic acid market might grow in the future,” Ip says.

The NRG COSIA Carbon XPRIZE launched last year, and CERT submitted its first round submission in July. They now have until August 2017 to prepare a submission for round two, in which teams must demonstrate an ability to scale their project. The team is currently working on less than a gram of CO2 in its experiments, but will have to reach a volume of 200 kilograms per day for round two.

“It’s a big jump, and I don’t think it’s something we would normally try to do in a year,” Ip says. “But, that’s what XPRIZE does – it challenges you to go for it.”

CERT chose formic acid as its product precisely because they anticipate that it will be easy to scale up, notes Ip. “Once we’ve gotten to scale, you can swap out the catalyst in your system to make a different product. It’s not quite that straightforward, but that’s the principle.”

The team of 20 includes researchers from across the university, many of whom came together through a $1-million grant from the University of Toronto’s Connaught Global Challenge Fund. Nanoparticle expert Professor Eugenia Kumacheva from the department of chemistry and fluidics specialist Professor David Sinton from the department of mechanical & industrial engineering are among the faculty members collaborating on the project.

“Tackling critical sustainability challenges requires collaboration across traditional disciplinary lines,” says Sargent. “CERT’s method holds incredible promise for practical implementation of carbon capture and conversion – that focus on applicability is at the core of the XPRIZE competition.”

The next step, says Ip, is making varied and more complex products, such as ethylene, from CO2. “We’re looking at how we can get two, or three, or more carbons linked together because that’s where you start getting more energy density and value in products.”

Round 2 of the Carbon XPRIZE will be judged in late 2017, with the top five teams in the natural gas and coal power plant streams sharing $2.5 million in prize money and advancing to the final round. Finalists will apply their methods to real power plants and be evaluated by both the amount of CO2 they are able to convert, and the net value of their final product.

“It’s a big challenge for us, but we want to see where it goes,” says Ip. “We think it’s a very important problem being addressed in this competition, and we’re happy to be a part of it.”