While we hope to soon be able, by breaking moleculesmolecules of water, produce hydrogen on an industrial scale to help decarbonize our economies, researchers from Northwestern University (United States) announce today that they have observed the opposite phenomenon. For the very first time, they witnessed the fusionfusion d’atomsatoms d’hydrogenhydrogen (H2)) and atoms ofoxygenoxygen (O2) thus forming a tiny drop of water (H2O).
In the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciencesthey explain that they have thus succeeded in untangling the threads of a process that had intrigued them for a long time. That of the formation of water catalyzed by palladiumpalladium. To do this, researchers have developed an ultrathin vitreous membrane. Objective: maintain the molecules of gazgaz in honeycomb-shaped nanoreactors, so that they can be observed by electron microscopeselectron microscopes in transmission, with a resolutionresolution crazy 0.102 nanometernanometer.
The researchers thus understood that to form water using a palladium catalyst – which is not consumed in the operation -, it is first necessary to inject the small hydrogen atoms into it. capable of penetrating the metal network. When oxygen is then added, it readily adsorbs onto the palladium surface and the reaction takes place.
A method to supply water to future space travelers
Already, researchers are imagining preparing slices of palladium stuffed with hydrogen for future space travelers. All they then have to do is add the oxygen to form water that they can drink once they arrive on an arid planet.
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