The most common process for making hydrogen peroxide begins with a highly toxic, flammable working solution that is combined with hydrogen, filtered, combined with oxygen, mixed in water, and then concentrated to extremely high levels for shipping.
The most common process for making hydrogen peroxide begins with a highly toxic, flammable working solution that is combined with hydrogen, filtered, combined with oxygen, mixed in water, and then concentrated to extremely high levels for shipping.
The transportation process is equally convoluted. Most of the massive chemical plants that make hydrogen peroxide are located in Russia and China. For big markets like the U.S. oil and gas industry, concentrated hydrogen peroxide is usually freighted to America, diluted, then shipped via rail or truck to places like western Texas, where a service company buys it and pumps it for the customer.
All of this complexity masks the fact that hydrogen peroxide is structurally simple. In fact, a large group of specialized proteins, called enzymes, have long been known to work with hydrogen peroxide in various biological systems. But translating that knowledge into a more natural way to create hydrogen peroxide has proven difficult — until recently.
Read more at Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Solugen's proprietary process for producing hydrogen peroxide uses modified enzymes and inexpensive compounds like sugar. It is currently being used in two pilot facilities that create more than 10 tons of the chemical every day.
Image courtesy of Solugen
