Professor Robert Palumbo Robert Palumbo

This project examines the kinetic and transport processes involoved in the the production of H₂ from water with Co²⁺ as an electroactive species being oxidized at a Ni electrode in 40 wt% KOH. The work has thus far led to first estimates of the relevant transport parameters such as electrochemical rate constants, transfer coefficients, diffusion coeffficients, and adsorption coefficients from cyclic voltammetry experiments and numerical modeling. This work was published in Chemical Engineering Science in 2017. 

The goal of the research is to develop an industrial process where concentrated sunlight is used to reduce Co³⁺ to Co²⁺ at temperatures near 1200 K. The reduced oxide species is then used in an electrochemical reaction to produce H₂ by oxidizing the Co²⁺, with a greatly reduced required electrical input for producing H₂ from water in comparison to the current industrial water electrolysis processes. The electrolysis product, Co³⁺, is recycled back to Co²⁺ with the solar step. The research community anticipates the H₂ being a feedstock along with biomass or captured CO₂ for the production of transportation fuels such as gasoline.

This group works with the solar research team at Valparaiso University currently being led by Dr. Luke Venstrom. Current works uses numerical analysis to explore the industrial potential of the electrolysis step. The researchers use the COMSOL Finite Element software to identify promissing cell configurations and to identify how best to direct further experimental work to validate those models. (The experimental work will be done at Valparaiso University.)

The complexity of the model, ulitmately 3D, with an electrochemical reaction involving a highly non-linear adsorption process coupled to fluid flow process, demands use of the supercomputing clusters.