Hydrogen is truly the best fuel; it can offer almost 141 kJ for each gram of it! Diesel and petrol/gasoline merely have 1/3rd of this calorific value. However widespread use is fraught with many difficulties.

The challenges currently with usage of hydrogen are to do with safety concerns in gas storage and transportation, and low rate of production leading to non-viability of technologies at the point-of-use.

Another global concern of immediate relevance involves heavy-metal (say mercury i.e. Hg) ion pollution. Viable processes which can simultaneously remove and result in beneficiation of the contaminants are almost never reported.

It is in the above context that we have developed a single-step, in situ co-reduction approach which has the dual advantage of (i) Hg contaminant removal, and (ii) room temperature hydrogen production. The key component resulting in hydrogen generation is a nano-amalgam that is produced within the "dirty" water. The hydrogen production rate (720 mL/min for 0.5 g-Al salt) is far superior to what would be expected from the use of pure hydrides, and/or using bulk amalgams at room temperature.

The method we have developed is simple, chimie douce (i.e soft chemical), hence potentially affordable, and capable of providing a means of beneficiating Hg contaminated water present in effluents from certain industries (for example, industries which uses chlor-alkali process). The in situ co-reduction approach helps in bypassing the usual rate limiting steps. Given the potential that exists in scale down and up, this approach offers a method to address the long standing challenge of point-of-use hydrogen availability.

Think about it - using dirty water as a source of fuel need'nt be in science fiction anymore!

For more information please read our patents and paper referred here. If you are interesting in commercializing this invention of ours we would be happy to talk to you.

Ref: Abdul Malek, Edamana Prasad, and Tiju Thomas, "Chimie douce hydrogen production from Hg contaminated water, with desirable throughput, and simultaneous Hg-removal", International Journal of Hydrogen Energy (2017; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhydene.2017.05.082)

"Hydrogen generation from waste water via galvanic corrosion of in-situ formed aluminum amalgam" (2016) (Indian Patent application no. 201641027502)