I am Huneck Mahadi and I will be talking about how Maricich and solid catalysis
can help us save energy and also develop cleaner alternative sources of energy,
80 percent of the global energy consumption comes from fossil fuels, which includes oil, natural gas and coal.
Not only do these fossil fuel sources cost money and also produce carbon dioxide gas, which is a greenhouse gas,
the biggest concern is that they are limited and non-renewable, so there might not be any left for the next generations to come.
So this is why my research in solid Catullus can help tackle this issue as a background, a catalyst is a substance that speeds up a reaction.
Think of it as a hill and you have to go from point A to point B by going over the hill.
But imagine if you can dig a tunnel underneath the hill. Now, you can go from A to B much faster and easier.
So the Hill is like the energy requirements for a chemical process to occur and the tunnel is how the catalyst speeds up the reaction.
So the implication of this is that the use of the Catullus energy requirement, such as temperature, can be lowered.
Solid catalyst usually consists of very expensive metals, metals that you normally use in your jewellery,
like platinum called palladium, rhodium and silver because of their cost.
We need to maximise this catalyst by making them into very small nanoparticles.
Each of these nanoparticles is about a thousand times smaller than the thickness of your hair.
By making these solid catalysts into these small sizes, we are not only maximising their surface area, but also maximising their activities.
So coming back to our energy issue, Solek catalysts can tackle it in two ways.
Firstly, it's about conserving the current fossil fuel energy.
The chemical industry is the most energy demanding industry in the industrial sector, which relies heavily on fossil fuel energy sources.
But using the solid catalysts, these processes in the chemical industry can be performed at lower temperatures so we
can produce the same amount of chemical products but at a much lower temperature,
therefore saving us a lot of energy.
For example, the process of making ammonia, which is used in fertilisers and very crucial to plant growth for food production.
With the help of a catalyst, the temperature needed for ammonia production can be lowered from a thousand degrees Celsius to 400 degrees Celsius.
Secondly, solid catalyst gives us a way to make cleaner alternative sources of energy.
One example is the application of Follet Catalyst and hydrogen fuel production from the process called water splitting.
Hydrogen fuel is the holy grail of energy source as it can be obtained from water and most importantly, does not leave any carbon footprint.
Currently, water splitting is done by using a platinum catalyst.
But we have also been working on other methods to increase its efficiency and also branching out to use cheaper materials as catalysts.
So I believe this research is solid, Catalyst will drive us towards a greener future,
firstly by conserving our limited supply of fossil fuels and secondly,
by creating alternative sources of clean energy, although these solid catalysts can be expensive.
It is a cost worth paying.