Research Results

Hydrogen can be produced by the decomposition of water using renewable energy sources such as sunlight and wind power, and it features the characteristic of not emitting carbon dioxide when used as energy. However, due to the difficulty of storage and transportation, research on "hydrogen carriers," substances that can efficiently store and transport hydrogen, is actively being conducted. Formic acid is attracting attention as one of the promising candidate substances for this hydrogen carrier. However, hydrogen production by formic acid decomposition using a catalyst requires the use of strongly acidic formic acid, and furthermore, there has been a challenge in controlling the reaction after catalyst addition. To solve this issue, Professor Amao and his colleagues constructed a collaborative system of a biocatalytic process using formate dehydrogenase derived from Candida boidinii, and a photo-redox reaction using water-soluble zinc porphyrin, methyl viologen, and colloidal platinum nanoparticles dispersed with polyvinylpyrrolidone. This system successfully achieved visible light-controlled hydrogen production from a neutral aqueous solution of formate salt. By using this system, the conversion rate from formate salt to hydrogen was approximately 92% after 25 hours of irradiation. This research contributes to the improvement of hydrogen production technology by utilizing sunlight.

The cover of this paper visually represents the green hydrogen production process utilizing sunlight.