SHArK Comes to New Paltz
01/31/2011
Chemistry Professor Daniel Freedman and his students have started a new research project called SHArK (Solar Hydrogen Activity Research Kit) to search for novel materials to be used to store solar energy by photochemically splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen.
First New Paltz SHArK student Nick Hanson (Biology, 2010).
Current SHArK students - Rachel Kaminski (Chem), Tatiana Yeargin (Chem), Darryl Steffen (Chem) , James Sutherland (Chem).
Powering the Planet
The National Science Foundation has funded a project called “Powering the Planet” which is a large consortium of scientists whose goal is to produce a system that will split water using sunlight (ccisolar.caltech.edu – President Obama mentioned this project in the State of the Union speech). The SHArK project (thesharkproject.org) is a part of a Powering the Planet that was developed by Prof. Bruce Parkinson of the University of Wyoming. The goal of SHArK is to produce new materials that will catalyze the O2 producing reaction shown in the figure.
Powering the Planet’s concept of a water-splitting device.
SHArK
The goal of SHArK is to investigate literally millions of combinations of metal oxides to find novel materials to be used to split water. There are currently over 30 SHArK sites at universities, colleges, and even some high schools. The method is to use a modified ink jet printer to print mixtures of solutions of different metal salts on to a glass slide. The slide is fired at 500 degrees Celsius to produce metal oxides. To evaluate the metal oxides for water splitting activity, we employ a Scan Station which uses a Lego robotics kit to slowly move a laser over the surface of the metal oxides. If a metal oxide shows any water-splitting activity when hit by the laser, a photocurrent is measured and converted into a false color image with a brighter color indicating a more active material. Shown below is a scan of a mixture of V,Cu, and Al oxides. The bright spot appears to be a new, photoactive material that we are investigating. Professor Freedman was invited to present the SUNY New Paltz SHArK team’s results at the annual retreat for the Powering the Planet project last week in California.
SHArK Scan Station.
Scan of a mixed metal oxides of V,Al, and Cu. The bright spot on the V/Cu axis indicates that the material is splitting water when hit by the laser.