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Rice College engineers and scientists have created a candy method for petrochemical refineries to show a smelly byproduct into money.
Hydrogen sulfide gasoline has the unmistakable aroma of rotten eggs. It usually emanates from sewers, stockyards and landfills, however it’s notably problematic for refineries, petrochemical vegetation and different industries, which make 1000’s of tons of the noxious gasoline every year as a byproduct of processes that take away sulfur from petroleum, pure gasoline, coal and different merchandise.
In a printed examine within the American Chemical Society’s high-impact journal ACS Power Letters, Rice engineer, physicist and chemist Naomi Halas and collaborators describe a technique that makes use of gold nanoparticles to transform hydrogen sulfide into high-demand hydrogen gasoline and sulfur in a single step. Higher but, the one-step course of will get all its power from mild. Examine co-authors embrace Rice’s Peter Nordlander, Princeton College’s Emily Carter and Syzygy Plasmonics’ Hossein Robatjazi.
“Hydrogen sulfide emissions can lead to hefty fines for business, however remediation can be very costly,” mentioned Halas, a nanophotonics pioneer whose lab has spent years growing commercially viable light-activated nanocatalysts. “The phrase ‘game-changer’ is overused, however on this case, it applies. Implementing plasmonic photocatalysis needs to be far cheaper than conventional remediation, and it has the added potential of remodeling a expensive burden into an more and more helpful commodity.”
Every molecule of hydrogen sulfide gasoline (H2S) accommodates a pair of hydrogen atoms and one atom of sulfur. Every molecule of clean-burning hydrogen gasoline (H2) — the staple commodity of the hydrogen economic system — accommodates a pair of hydrogen atoms. Within the new examine, Halas’ workforce dotted the floor of grains of silicon dioxide powder with tiny islands of gold. Every island was a gold nanoparticle about 10 billionths of a meter throughout that will work together strongly with a selected wavelength of seen mild. These plasmonic reactions create “sizzling carriers,” short-lived, high-energy electrons that may drive catalysis.
Within the examine, Halas and co-authors used a laboratory setup and confirmed a financial institution of LED lights might produce sizzling service photocatalysis and effectively convert H2S straight into H2 gasoline and sulfur. That is a stark distinction to the established catalytic know-how refineries use to interrupt down hydrogen sulfide. Generally known as the Claus course of, it produces sulfur however no hydrogen, which it as an alternative converts into water. The Claus course of additionally requires a number of steps, together with some that require combustion chambers heated to about 1,500 levels Fahrenheit.
The plasmonic hydrogen sulfide remediation know-how has been licensed bySyzygy Plasmonics, a Houston-based startup firm with greater than 60 workers, whose co-founders embrace Halas and Nordlander.
Halas mentioned the remediation course of might wind up having low sufficient implementation prices and excessive sufficient effectivity to grow to be economical for cleansing up nonindustrial hydrogen sulfide from sources like sewer gasoline and animal wastes.
“On condition that it requires solely seen mild and no exterior heating, the method needs to be comparatively simple to scale up utilizing renewable photo voltaic power or extremely environment friendly solid-state LED lighting,” she mentioned.
On Oct. 3, Halas and Nordlander have been offered the prestigious2022 Eni Power Transition Award in recognition of their efforts to develop environment friendly light-powered catalysts for industrial-scale hydrogen manufacturing.
Halas is Rice’s Stanley C. Moore Professor of Electrical and Pc Engineering and a professor of chemistry, bioengineering, physics and astronomy, and supplies science and nanoengineering. Nordlander is Rice’s Wiess Chair and Professor of Physics and Astronomy, and professor {of electrical} and pc engineering, and supplies science and nanoengineering. Carter is Princeton’s Gerhard R. Andlinger Professor Emeritus in Power and Setting and a professor emeritus of mechanical and aerospace engineering and utilized and computational arithmetic. Robatjazi is chief scientist at Syzygy Plasmonics and an adjunct professor of chemistry at Rice.
The analysis was supported by the Welch Basis (C-1220, C-1222), the Air Drive Workplace of Scientific Analysis (FA9550-15-1-0022) and the Protection Risk Discount Company (HDTRA 1-16-1-0042).
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Supplies offered by Rice College. Unique written by Jade Boyd. Be aware: Content material could also be edited for type and size.
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