Green method could enable hospitals to produce hydrogen peroxide in house
jacobsschool.ucsd.edu- In recent COVID news, Hydrogen Peroxide has been showing promise as a good disinfectant for medical equipment.
- Hydrogen peroxide has a short shelf-life, and it breaks down into water and oxygen often before the bottle is open, so there’s a need for a different production process.
- One team of scientists was working on such a process right at the time that COVID hit—it was for battery recycling, so they had to rework it for potential use in hospitals.
- The method uses the two-electron oxygen reduction reaction, and relies on a special catalyst developed by the scientists, made of partially-oxidized carbon nanotubes.
- If successful, this could be a great way for hospital staff to produce hydrogen peroxide on-location, at lower costs than buying it from industrial factories.