Principal investigator: Andrew Magenau
University: Drexel University
Industry partner: FXI, Inc.
Clean hydrogen has the potential to revolutionize society by reducing greenhouse gas emissions and providing a sustainable energy source. The development of green hydrogen at low-cost would have an immense impact by supplying clean power to heavy carbonizing sectors like transportation, chemical production, and manufacturing. Today, the U.S. Department of Energy has the goal of reducing clean hydrogen costs to $1 per kilogram. However, technological challenges exist in producing effective materials capable of generating clean hydrogen at low cost. We propose manufacturing a material from a cheap, scalable photocatalytic nanomaterial and an industrially produced and affordable polymeric scaffold. The proposed material would be a highly porous, reticulated polyurethane with surfaced-embedded one-dimensional titanium dioxide-based lepidocrocite nanomaterials capable of splitting water into hydrogen gas when exposed to light. This project would explore production of such a reticulated nanocomposite by in-situ polymerization and chemical etching along with evaluating its performance for hydrogen production.