• Scienmag
  • Contcat Us
Monday, December 9, 2019
BIOENGINEER.ORG
No Result
View All Result
  • HOME
  • NEWS
    • BIOENGINEERING
    • SCIENCE NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
        • Lecturer
        • PhD Studentship
        • Postdoc
        • Research Assistant
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • FORUM
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
  • CONTACT US
  • HOME
  • NEWS
    • BIOENGINEERING
    • SCIENCE NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
        • Lecturer
        • PhD Studentship
        • Postdoc
        • Research Assistant
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • FORUM
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
  • CONTACT US
No Result
View All Result
Bioengineer.org
No Result
View All Result
Home NEWS Science News

New material cleans and splits water

Bioengineer by Bioengineer
November 5, 2018
in Science News
0
IMAGE

Credit: Alina-Stavroula Kampouri/EPFL

Some of the most useful and versatile materials today are the metal-organic frameworks (MOFs). MOFs are a class of materials demonstrating structural versatility, high porosity, fascinating optical and electronic properties, all of which makes them promising candidates for a variety of applications, including gas capture and separation, sensors, and photocatalysis.

Because MOFs are so versatile in both their structural design and usefulness, material scientists are currently testing them in a number of chemical applications. One of these is photocatalysis, a process where a light-sensitive material is excited with light. The absorbed excess energy dislocates electrons from their atomic orbits, leaving behind "electron holes". The generation of such electron-hole pairs is a crucial process in any light-dependent energy process, and, in this case, it allows the MOF to affect a variety of chemical reactions.

A team of scientists at EPFL Sion led by Kyriakos Stylianou at the Laboratory of Molecular Simulation, have now developed a MOF-based system that can perform not one, but two types of photocatalysis simultaneously: production of hydrogen, and cleaning pollutants out of water. The material contains the abundantly available and cheap nickel phosphide (Ni2P), and was found to carry out efficient photocatalysis under visible light, which accounts to 44% of the solar spectrum.

The first type of photocatalysis, hydrogen production, involves a reaction called "water-splitting". Like the name suggests, the reaction divides water molecules into their constituents: hydrogen and oxygen. One of the bigger applications here is to use the hydrogen for fuel cells, which are energy-supply devices used in a variety of technologies today, including satellites and space shuttles.

The second type of photocatalysis is referred to as "organic pollutant degradation", which refers to processes breaking down pollutants present in water. The scientists investigated this innovative MOF-based photocatalytic system towards the degradation of the toxic dye rhodamine B, commonly used to simulate organic pollutants.

The scientists performed both tests in sequence, showing that the MOF-based photocatalytic system was able to integrate the photocatalytic generation of hydrogen with the degradation of rhodamine B in a single process. This means that it is now possible to use this photocatalytic system to both clean pollutants out of water, while simultaneously producing hydrogen that can be used as a fuel.

"This noble-metal free photocatalytic system brings the field of photocatalysis a step closer to practical 'solar-driven' applications and showcases the great potential of MOFs in this field," says Kyriakos Stylianou.

###

Other contributors

University College London

Reference

Stavroula Kampouri, Tu N. Nguyen, Mariana Spodaryk, Robert G. Palgrave, Andreas Zu?ttel, Berend Smit, Kyriakos C. Stylianou. Concurrent Photocatalytic Hydrogen Generation and Dye Degradation Using MIL-125-NH2 under Visible Light Irradiation. Advanced Functional Materials 05 November 2018.

Media Contact

Nik Papageorgiou
[email protected]
41-216-932-105
@EPFL_en

http://www.epfl.ch/index.en.html

Related Posts

IMAGE
Biology

Researchers find some forests crucial for climate change mitigation, biodiversity

by Bioengineer
December 9, 2019
IMAGE
Biology

Megadroughts fueled Peruvian cloud forest activity

by Bioengineer
December 9, 2019
IMAGE
Biology

New bone healing mechanism has potential therapeutic applications

by Bioengineer
December 9, 2019

POPULAR NEWS

  • IMAGE

    Scientists find eternal Nile to be more ancient than previously thought

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • What felled the great Assyrian Empire? A Yale professor weighs in

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • New study suggests ‘Pac-Man-like’ mergers could explain massive, spinning black holes

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Scientists discover how the molecule-sorting station in our cells is formed and maintained

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Nearly extreme black holes which attempt to regrow hair become bald again

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
ADVERTISEMENT

About

We bring you the latest biotechnology news from best research centers and universities around the world. Check our website.

Follow us

Recent Posts

  • Researchers find some forests crucial for climate change mitigation, biodiversity
  • Megadroughts fueled Peruvian cloud forest activity
  • New bone healing mechanism has potential therapeutic applications
  • New tool to assess digital addiction in children

Tags

Aging Agriculture Atmospheric Science Behavior Biochemistry Biodiversity Biology Biomedical/Environmental/Chemical Engineering Biotechnology cancer Cardiology Cell Biology Chemistry/Physics/Materials Sciences Climate Change Clinical Trials Computer Science Earth Science Ecology/Environment Electrical Engineering/Electronics Evolution Genes Genetics Health Care Health Care Systems/Services Health Professionals Immunology/Allergies/Asthma Infectious/Emerging Diseases Marine/Freshwater Biology Materials Medicine/Health Mental Health Microbiology Molecular Biology Nanotechnology/Micromachines neurobiology Nutrition/Nutrients Pediatrics Pharmaceutical Science Physiology Plant Sciences Public Health Research/Development Social/Behavioral Science Technology/Engineering/Computer Science Zoology/Veterinary Science
  • Contact Us

© 2019 Bioengineer.org - Biotechnology news by Science Magazine - Scienmag.

No Result
View All Result
  • Homepages
    • Home Page 1
    • Home Page 2
  • News
  • National
  • Business
  • Health
  • Lifestyle
  • Science

© 2019 Bioengineer.org - Biotechnology news by Science Magazine - Scienmag.

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Fill the forms bellow to register

All fields are required. Log In

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In