Hi I'm Aditya and I'm going to show you how we will assemble this electrochemical cell
for chemical reduction of nitrates. So we have this bottom part over here which is essentially
our electrochemical cell where our electrodes and electrolytes go in and on top we have this case
for our solar panel through which we'll insert our solar panel in and then we'll connect it
through the cell so that we can do the chemical reaction. So first off we'll use this
solar panel case and put this triple junction 32 efficient light absorber into it.
stuck here
Putting this on the side we'll now assemble the electrodes we have
the oxide derived cobalt as our cathode and nickel form as our hand
Now we'll be pouring in the electrolyte for this reaction
which is one molar potassium nitrate and one molar potassium hydroxide
Once the electrolyte is filled we'll add
500 microliters of messler's liquid which will help us in detecting the presence of ammonia
Once all of this is done we will assemble uh the solar case on top of the electrochemical cell
and that is our code 7
Hi I'm Nishitan Kani and I'm gonna demonstrate uh how this device works so uh this is our
electrochemical cell and this is a solar cell so electrochemical cell has two different parts two
different electrodes cathode and anode so the cathode in our case is oxide that have cobalt
and the anode in our cases nickel form. So what happens is when we place this device when we
irradiate using sunlight the electrons will be ejected from the solar cell based on the
photoelectric effect and the electrons will travel and reach the cathode based on this connection so
when we make it uh when we connected the electrons will reach the oxidative cobalt and the electrons
will cause the nitrates to reduce into ammonia so it's a 8 electron process so the nitrates
will be reduced to ammonia on the surface of this cobalt. So there will be an electron depletion on
the other side so the water will react and form oxygen and electrons so that electrons will travel
and reach the other side of the solar cell and the circuit is completed. So when the ammonia is
formed that will react with the nestlers reagent which is added to the electrolyte so the nestlers
reagent is our indicator so we could see the streamlines of ammonia which is diffusing into the
product and it will be brownish in color once the ammonia has formed so that's how this setup works.
Hello everyone. My name is Meenesh Singh from University of Illinois Chicago.
As you have seen how my students have discovered
a reactor that can convert nitrate to produce ammonia using sunlight you have seen how
Aditya has shown the assembly of the reactor followed by its operation
by NIshitan. I'm going to show you how this reactor operates in presence of sunlight.
This is the reactor and I'm going to now connect the terminal of this reactor
to the solar panel. As soon as I connect it you will see the reaction starting spontaneously.
Now you can see the reaction has started and you can see some brown color forming on the right hand
side which is ammonia and it is producing as a streaks of ammonium ion produced in the solution.
And quite instantaneously in few minutes you will see the entire solution will turn brown.
You can see the potential of this technology can be revolutionary.
It can take the nitrates from the wastewater stream and sunlight to
produce ammonia for fertilizer application as well as to generate electricity. Thank you.