Recently, Professor Qu Yongquan from the Frontier Institute of Science and Technology of XJTU successfully made progress in producing high purity hydrogen from dehydrogenation between N, N-dimethylformamide (DMF) and water in the absence of additives through an in-situ formed Cu/Cu2O catalyst. DMF shows characteristics of low toxicity, high boiling point, non-flammability and non-explosibility. This reaction system creates a good catalytic stability. After 17 days of catalytic hydrogen production, the rate of hydrogen production of the catalyst did not decrease significantly. Furthermore, the processes of gas purification and separation were also avoided because hydrogen is the only gas-phase product in this system showing an important value for practical applications. Therefore, hopefully it can be directly combined with hydrogen fuel cells in producing to produce high purity hydrogen and can be used as a mobile device and platform to provide high purity hydrogen.

The above results were published on the journal Angewandte Chemie, International Edition with the title “Additive-free, Robust and High Value-added H2 Production from Dehydrogenation between H2O and DMF Catalyzed by in-situ Formed Cu/Cu2O”. Doctor Zhang Sai, PhD candidate from XJTU Frontier Institute of Science and Technology authored the article with others.

Link to the article：http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/anie.201704381/full