Chad Smith
Graduate Research Assistant
Solar Thermal Hydrogen Production

Education

  • Ph.D., Chemical Engineering, Â鶹Ãâ·Ñ°æÏÂÔØ

The goal of my research is the investigation of a viable means to split water and recover hydrogen as a renewable fuel source.Ìý In the realm of thermo-chemical water splitting technology, an attractive approach is the two-step Zn/ZnO redox cycle:

ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý ZnO → Zn + ½ O2ÌýÌý( high-temperature solar decomposition)Ìý (1)

ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý Zn + H2O →ZnO +H2Ìý(low temperature water splitting)ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý (2)

My work focuses on the low temperature water splitting portion of this cycle where hydrogen is generated.Ìý My investigation includes: determining fluidization behavior of zinc nanopowders; designing and implementing a fluidized bed reactor of zinc nanopowder to carryout the water splitting reaction at high pressures; modeling the reactor to determine the kinetic properties and transport contributions of the reaction.