{"id":13126,"date":"2014-04-10t20:27:33","date_gmt":"2014-04-10t20:27:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dpetrov.2create.studio\/planet\/wordpress\/sunlight-generates-hydrogen-in-new-porous-silicon\/"},"modified":"2023-02-28t18:44:27","modified_gmt":"2023-02-28t18:44:27","slug":"sunlight-generates-hydrogen-in-new-porous-silicon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"\/\/www.getitdoneaz.com\/story\/sunlight-generates-hydrogen-in-new-porous-silicon\/","title":{"rendered":"sunlight generates hydrogen in new porous silicon"},"content":{"rendered":"

porous silicon manufactured in a bottom-up procedure using solar energy can be used to generate hydrogen from water, according to a team of penn state mechanical engineers, who also see applications for batteries, biosensors and optical electronics as outlets for this new material.<\/p>\n

the surface area of this porous silicon is high,” said donghai wang<\/a> an assistant professor of mechanical engineering<\/a> at penn state. “it is widely used and has a lot of applications.”<\/p>\n

the standard method for manufacturing porous silicon is a subtraction method, similar to making a sculpture.<\/p>\n

“silicon is an important material because it is a semiconductor,” said wang. “typically, porous silicon is produced by etching, a process in which lots of material is lost.”<\/p>\n

wang’s team uses a chemically based method that builds up the material rather than removing it. the researchers start with silicon tetrachloride, a very inexpensive source of silicon. they then treat the material with asodium potassium alloy.<\/p>\n

“the bonds between silicon and chlorine in silicon tetrachloride are very strong and require a highly reducing agent,” said wang. “sodium potassium alloy is such an agent.”<\/p>\n

once the bonds break, the chlorine binds with the sodium, potassium and silicon, potassium chloride and sodium chloride — table salt — become solid, forming a material composed of crystals of salt embedded in silicon. the material is then heat-treated and washed in water to dissolve the salt, leaving pores that range from 5 to 15 nanometers. the researchers report their results in today’s (apr. 10) issue of nature communications.<\/p>\n

because sodium potassium alloy is highly reactive, the entire procedure must be done away from the oxygen in the air, so the researchers carry out their reaction in an argon atmosphere.<\/p>\n

“i believe that the process can be scaled up to manufacturing size,” said wang. “there are some processes that use sodium potassium alloy at industrial levels. so we can adapt their approaches to make this new type of porositic silicon.”<\/p>\n

because these silicon particles have lots of pores, they have a large surface area, and act as an effective catalyst when sunlight shines on this porous silicon and water. the energy in sunlight can excite an electron that then reduces water, generating hydrogen gas. this process is aided by the material’s larger-than-normal band gap, which comes from the nanoscale size of the silicon crystallites.<\/p>\n

“this porous silicon can generate a good amount of hydrogen just from sunlight,” said wang.<\/p>\n

the researchers are also looking into using this porous silicon as the anode in a lithium ion battery.<\/p>\n

other researchers on this project were fang dai, jiantao zai and hiesang sohn, all postdoctural researchers in mechanical engineering; and ran yi, mikhail l gordin and shuru chen, graduate students in mechanical engineering.<\/p>\n

the u.s. department of energy and the defense threat reduction agency funded this work.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

porous silicon manufactured in a bottom-up procedure using solar energy can be used to generate hydrogen from water, according to a team of penn state mechanical engineers, who also see applications for batteries, biosensors and optical electronics as outlets for this new material. the surface area of this porous silicon is high,” said donghai wang an assistant professor of mechanical…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9113,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4917,4891],"tags":[939,19,3346,3347,1698],"storyfest_categories":[],"class_list":["post-13126","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy","category-solar","tag-lithium-ion","tag-penn-state","tag-porous-silicon","tag-rescom","tag-semiconductors"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nsunlight generates hydrogen in new porous silicon - planet forward<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"\/\/www.getitdoneaz.com\/story\/sunlight-generates-hydrogen-in-new-porous-silicon\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_us\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"sunlight generates hydrogen in new porous silicon - planet forward\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"porous silicon manufactured in a bottom-up procedure using solar energy can be used to generate hydrogen from water, according to a team of penn state mechanical engineers, who also see applications for batteries, biosensors and optical electronics as outlets for this new material. the surface area of this porous silicon is high,” said donghai wang an assistant professor of mechanical...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"\/\/www.getitdoneaz.com\/story\/sunlight-generates-hydrogen-in-new-porous-silicon\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"planet forward\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/planetforward.org\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-04-10t20:27:33+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2023-02-28t18:44:27+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"sustainability at penn state\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@planet_forward\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@planet_forward\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"sustainability at penn state\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"article\",\"@id\":\"\/\/www.getitdoneaz.com\/story\/sunlight-generates-hydrogen-in-new-porous-silicon\/#article\",\"ispartof\":{\"@id\":\"\/\/www.getitdoneaz.com\/story\/sunlight-generates-hydrogen-in-new-porous-silicon\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"sustainability at penn state\",\"@id\":\"\/\/www.getitdoneaz.com\/#\/schema\/person\/4a49438e5278a32da8912c4fc731779c\"},\"headline\":\"sunlight generates hydrogen in new porous silicon\",\"datepublished\":\"2014-04-10t20:27:33+00:00\",\"datemodified\":\"2023-02-28t18:44:27+00:00\",\"mainentityofpage\":{\"@id\":\"\/\/www.getitdoneaz.com\/story\/sunlight-generates-hydrogen-in-new-porous-silicon\/\"},\"wordcount\":489,\"commentcount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"\/\/www.getitdoneaz.com\/#organization\"},\"keywords\":[\"lithium ion\",\"penn state\",\"porous silicon\",\"rescom\",\"semiconductors\"],\"articlesection\":[\"energy\",\"solar\"],\"inlanguage\":\"en-us\",\"potentialaction\":[{\"@type\":\"commentaction\",\"name\":\"comment\",\"target\":[\"\/\/www.getitdoneaz.com\/story\/sunlight-generates-hydrogen-in-new-porous-silicon\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"webpage\",\"@id\":\"\/\/www.getitdoneaz.com\/story\/sunlight-generates-hydrogen-in-new-porous-silicon\/\",\"url\":\"\/\/www.getitdoneaz.com\/story\/sunlight-generates-hydrogen-in-new-porous-silicon\/\",\"name\":\"sunlight generates hydrogen in new porous silicon - planet forward\",\"ispartof\":{\"@id\":\"\/\/www.getitdoneaz.com\/#website\"},\"datepublished\":\"2014-04-10t20:27:33+00:00\",\"datemodified\":\"2023-02-28t18:44:27+00:00\",\"inlanguage\":\"en-us\",\"potentialaction\":[{\"@type\":\"readaction\",\"target\":[\"\/\/www.getitdoneaz.com\/story\/sunlight-generates-hydrogen-in-new-porous-silicon\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"website\",\"@id\":\"\/\/www.getitdoneaz.com\/#website\",\"url\":\"\/\/www.getitdoneaz.com\/\",\"name\":\"planet forward\",\"description\":\"inspiring stories to 2022年卡塔尔世界杯官网 \",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"\/\/www.getitdoneaz.com\/#organization\"},\"potentialaction\":[{\"@type\":\"searchaction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"entrypoint\",\"urltemplate\":\"\/\/www.getitdoneaz.com\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"propertyvaluespecification\",\"valuerequired\":true,\"valuename\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inlanguage\":\"en-us\"},{\"@type\":\"organization\",\"@id\":\"\/\/www.getitdoneaz.com\/#organization\",\"name\":\"planet forward\",\"url\":\"\/\/www.getitdoneaz.com\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"imageobject\",\"inlanguage\":\"en-us\",\"@id\":\"\/\/www.getitdoneaz.com\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"\/\/www.getitdoneaz.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/pf_main_primary_rgb-1-1.png\",\"contenturl\":\"\/\/www.getitdoneaz.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/pf_main_primary_rgb-1-1.png\",\"width\":1264,\"height\":660,\"caption\":\"planet forward\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"\/\/www.getitdoneaz.com\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"},\"sameas\":[\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/planetforward.org\",\"https:\/\/x.com\/planet_forward\"]},{\"@type\":\"person\",\"@id\":\"\/\/www.getitdoneaz.com\/#\/schema\/person\/4a49438e5278a32da8912c4fc731779c\",\"name\":\"sustainability at penn state\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"imageobject\",\"inlanguage\":\"en-us\",\"@id\":\"\/\/www.getitdoneaz.com\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/6286bb747b1dd2f3ae34135c5663a035?s=96&d=https%3a%2f%2fplanetforward.org%2fwp-content%2fuploads%2f2023%2f02%2funtitled-design-1-150x150.png&r=g\",\"contenturl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/6286bb747b1dd2f3ae34135c5663a035?s=96&d=https%3a%2f%2fplanetforward.org%2fwp-content%2fuploads%2f2023%2f02%2funtitled-design-1-150x150.png&r=g\",\"caption\":\"sustainability at penn state\"},\"description\":\"today, we face the global challenge of sustainability\u2014from feeding a growing population to preserving earth\u2019s resources to ensuring energy security. as an institution of higher learning\u2014and, more importantly, as penn state\u2014we have a responsibility to our students, our institution, and our greater society to teach, embody, and communicate a world view that allows the collective \u201cwe\u201d to prosper, both now and in the future. we have risen to the challenge before\u2014with humility, responsibility, openness, commitment, and a profound belief in the power of \u201cwe.\u201d it is with a charge to do better, to think and act anew, that the university has created the sustainability institute. the mission of the sustainability institute is to facilitate the integration of sustainability into all functions of the university. as the flexibility to be innovative is paramount, the sustainability institute is open to a wide range of initiatives and supports a variety of projects that embody the three goals: learn, live, and lead. learn more at sustainability.psu.edu.\",\"url\":\"\/\/www.getitdoneaz.com\/author\/sustainpsu\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ yoast seo plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"sunlight generates hydrogen in new porous silicon - planet forward","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"\/\/www.getitdoneaz.com\/story\/sunlight-generates-hydrogen-in-new-porous-silicon\/","og_locale":"en_us","og_type":"article","og_title":"sunlight generates hydrogen in new porous silicon - planet forward","og_description":"porous silicon manufactured in a bottom-up procedure using solar energy can be used to generate hydrogen from water, according to a team of penn state mechanical engineers, who also see applications for batteries, biosensors and optical electronics as outlets for this new material. the surface area of this porous silicon is high,” said donghai wang an assistant professor of mechanical...","og_url":"\/\/www.getitdoneaz.com\/story\/sunlight-generates-hydrogen-in-new-porous-silicon\/","og_site_name":"planet forward","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/planetforward.org","article_published_time":"2014-04-10t20:27:33+00:00","article_modified_time":"2023-02-28t18:44:27+00:00","author":"sustainability at penn state","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@planet_forward","twitter_site":"@planet_forward","twitter_misc":{"written by":"sustainability at penn state","est. reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"article","@id":"\/\/www.getitdoneaz.com\/story\/sunlight-generates-hydrogen-in-new-porous-silicon\/#article","ispartof":{"@id":"\/\/www.getitdoneaz.com\/story\/sunlight-generates-hydrogen-in-new-porous-silicon\/"},"author":{"name":"sustainability at penn state","@id":"\/\/www.getitdoneaz.com\/#\/schema\/person\/4a49438e5278a32da8912c4fc731779c"},"headline":"sunlight generates hydrogen in new porous silicon","datepublished":"2014-04-10t20:27:33+00:00","datemodified":"2023-02-28t18:44:27+00:00","mainentityofpage":{"@id":"\/\/www.getitdoneaz.com\/story\/sunlight-generates-hydrogen-in-new-porous-silicon\/"},"wordcount":489,"commentcount":0,"publisher":{"@id":"\/\/www.getitdoneaz.com\/#organization"},"keywords":["lithium ion","penn state","porous silicon","rescom","semiconductors"],"articlesection":["energy","solar"],"inlanguage":"en-us","potentialaction":[{"@type":"commentaction","name":"comment","target":["\/\/www.getitdoneaz.com\/story\/sunlight-generates-hydrogen-in-new-porous-silicon\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"webpage","@id":"\/\/www.getitdoneaz.com\/story\/sunlight-generates-hydrogen-in-new-porous-silicon\/","url":"\/\/www.getitdoneaz.com\/story\/sunlight-generates-hydrogen-in-new-porous-silicon\/","name":"sunlight generates hydrogen in new porous silicon - planet forward","ispartof":{"@id":"\/\/www.getitdoneaz.com\/#website"},"datepublished":"2014-04-10t20:27:33+00:00","datemodified":"2023-02-28t18:44:27+00:00","inlanguage":"en-us","potentialaction":[{"@type":"readaction","target":["\/\/www.getitdoneaz.com\/story\/sunlight-generates-hydrogen-in-new-porous-silicon\/"]}]},{"@type":"website","@id":"\/\/www.getitdoneaz.com\/#website","url":"\/\/www.getitdoneaz.com\/","name":"planet forward","description":"inspiring stories to 2022年卡塔尔世界杯官网 ","publisher":{"@id":"\/\/www.getitdoneaz.com\/#organization"},"potentialaction":[{"@type":"searchaction","target":{"@type":"entrypoint","urltemplate":"\/\/www.getitdoneaz.com\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"propertyvaluespecification","valuerequired":true,"valuename":"search_term_string"}}],"inlanguage":"en-us"},{"@type":"organization","@id":"\/\/www.getitdoneaz.com\/#organization","name":"planet forward","url":"\/\/www.getitdoneaz.com\/","logo":{"@type":"imageobject","inlanguage":"en-us","@id":"\/\/www.getitdoneaz.com\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"\/\/www.getitdoneaz.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/pf_main_primary_rgb-1-1.png","contenturl":"\/\/www.getitdoneaz.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/pf_main_primary_rgb-1-1.png","width":1264,"height":660,"caption":"planet forward"},"image":{"@id":"\/\/www.getitdoneaz.com\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"},"sameas":["https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/planetforward.org","https:\/\/x.com\/planet_forward"]},{"@type":"person","@id":"\/\/www.getitdoneaz.com\/#\/schema\/person\/4a49438e5278a32da8912c4fc731779c","name":"sustainability at penn state","image":{"@type":"imageobject","inlanguage":"en-us","@id":"\/\/www.getitdoneaz.com\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/6286bb747b1dd2f3ae34135c5663a035?s=96&d=https%3a%2f%2fplanetforward.org%2fwp-content%2fuploads%2f2023%2f02%2funtitled-design-1-150x150.png&r=g","contenturl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/6286bb747b1dd2f3ae34135c5663a035?s=96&d=https%3a%2f%2fplanetforward.org%2fwp-content%2fuploads%2f2023%2f02%2funtitled-design-1-150x150.png&r=g","caption":"sustainability at penn state"},"description":"today, we face the global challenge of sustainability\u2014from feeding a growing population to preserving earth\u2019s resources to ensuring energy security. as an institution of higher learning\u2014and, more importantly, as penn state\u2014we have a responsibility to our students, our institution, and our greater society to teach, embody, and communicate a world view that allows the collective \u201cwe\u201d to prosper, both now and in the future. we have risen to the challenge before\u2014with humility, responsibility, openness, commitment, and a profound belief in the power of \u201cwe.\u201d it is with a charge to do better, to think and act anew, that the university has created the sustainability institute. the mission of the sustainability institute is to facilitate the integration of sustainability into all functions of the university. as the flexibility to be innovative is paramount, the sustainability institute is open to a wide range of initiatives and supports a variety of projects that embody the three goals: learn, live, and lead. learn more at sustainability.psu.edu.","url":"\/\/www.getitdoneaz.com\/author\/sustainpsu\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"\/\/www.getitdoneaz.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13126"}],"collection":[{"href":"\/\/www.getitdoneaz.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"\/\/www.getitdoneaz.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"\/\/www.getitdoneaz.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9113"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"\/\/www.getitdoneaz.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13126"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"\/\/www.getitdoneaz.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13126\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"\/\/www.getitdoneaz.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"\/\/www.getitdoneaz.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"\/\/www.getitdoneaz.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13126"},{"taxonomy":"storyfest_categories","embeddable":true,"href":"\/\/www.getitdoneaz.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/storyfest_categories?post=13126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}