Advanced Reactor Design: Fall 2020 HW 3

Due to Thursday December 31st at 8:00 PM

Solar Energy Capture: Water Splitting. Hydrogen and O2 can be combined in fuel cells to
generate electricity. Solar energy can be used to split water to generate the raw reactants H 2 and
O2 for fuel cells. One method of solar thermal reduction is with NiFe2O4 in the sequence

We note NiFe2O4 is regenerated in this process.

(a) Derive a rate law for Step (2), assuming that water adsorbs on the solid solution as a single-site
mechanism and that the reaction is irreversible.
(b) Repeat when the reaction is reversible and the solid solution adsorption site for water (S’) is
different than the NiFe2O4 site for the adsorption of H2, (S).

(c)How would your rate law change if we included the effect of hv in Step 1?