Water splitting to replicate the natural process of photosynthesis, converting sunlight, water and carbon dioxide into carbohydrates and oxygen. Recently, this has been successful in splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen using an artificial compound called Nafion. High-temperature electrolysis (also HTE or steam electrolysis) is a method currently being investigated for the production of hydrogen from water with oxygen as a by-product. Other research includes thermolysis on defective carbon substrates, thus making hydrogen production possible at temperatures just under 1000 °C. The iron oxide cycle is a series of thermochemical processes used to produce hydrogen. The iron oxide cycle consists of two
Carbon dioxide emissions – primarily from use of fossil fuels and deforestation – have rapidly increased its concentration in the atmosphere, leading to global warming. Carbon dioxide also causes ocean acidification because it dissolves in water to form carbonic acid. Carbon dioxide was the first gas to be described as a discrete substance. In about 1640, the Flemish chemist Jan Baptist van Helmont observed that when he burned charcoal in a closed vessel, the mass of the resulting ash was much less than that of the original charcoal. His interpretation was that the rest of the charcoal had been transmuted into an