Sustainable and green hydrogen generation by water on nano‐zirconium surface with post‐experimental characterization of photo‐catalyst

Abstract A new method of hydrogen generation was developed on the nano zirconium surface by water splitting under a radiation‐thermal process. The hydrogen generation process was optimized at different temperatures (373–673 K). The maximum amount of hydrogen produced was 14.0 × 10 17 molecules/g.s at 673 K. The values of W T (H 2 ), W R (H 2 ), and W RT (H 2 ) were 0.70 × 10 14 , 0.63 × 10 14 and 1.33 × 10 14 molecules/g.s at 673 K temperature. The values of G(H 2 ) were 2.0, 3.5, 5.7 and 8.4 molecules/100 eV at 373, 473, 573 and 673 K temperatures. The activation energy was also determined for the radiation thermal process with a 22.3 kJ/mol value. As per the mechanism, the hydrogen generation on the nano‐zirconium surface is accompanied by the formation of zirconium oxide (ZrO 2 ). Besides, the surface analysis of zirconium was studied by FT‐IR and SEM to support the mechanism. Finally, the reported method is efficient and effective and may be used for hydrogen production at an industrial scale after calibration at an industrial scale.