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Aluminum Clusters Split Water

The figure shows aluminum clusters reacting with water to produce hydrogen. Image credit: A.C. Reber, VCU/Penn State

Aluminum Clusters Split Water

Clusters of aluminum atoms have been used by researchers at Penn State and Virginia Commonwealth University as catalysts to break the molecular bonds of hydrogen and oxygen atoms in water. Writing in a recent issue of the journal Science, the researchers describe a surprising result: The ability to break the molecular bonds of water depends not only on the electronic properties of the aluminum clusters, as previously surmised, but on the arrangement of the aluminum atoms. This knowledge may allow them to design new nanoscale catalysts by changing the geometry of atoms in a cluster, opening up new areas of research that go beyond breaking the bonds of water.

The researchers designed three sets of aluminum clusters that produced hydrogen from water at room temperature and without the addition of heat or electricity. This could provide the ability to produce hydrogen on demand without the need for storage. In the future, they hope to be able to recycle the aluminum for continual use and learn to release the hydrogen more controllably.

The team includes A. Welford Castleman, Jr., Eberly Family Distinguished Chair in Science and Evan Pugh Professor in the Penn State Departments of Chemistry and Physics, Penn State graduate students Patrick Roach and Hunter Woodward, and Virginia Commonwealth University professor of physics Shiv Kanna and postdoctoral associate Arthur Reber. Funding was provided by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research. For more information on the Castleman group and cluster science see “Building Nanomaterials One Superatom at a Time” in the Summer 2007 issue of Focus on Materials.

This article was featured in Focus on Materials - Winter 2009.