Energy

Solar supercapacitor creates electricity and hydrogen fuel on the cheap

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A replica of the UCLA device, which can produce both electricity and hydrogen
Reed Hutchinson/UCLA
A replica of the UCLA device, which can produce both electricity and hydrogen
Reed Hutchinson/UCLA
The UCLA device could help lower the cost of hydrogen as a fuel source for vehicles
Reed Hutchinson/UCLA

Hydrogen-powered vehicles are slowly hitting the streets, but although it's a clean and plentiful fuel source, a lack of infrastructure for mass producing, distributing and storing hydrogen is still a major roadblock. But new work out of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) could help lower the barrier to entry for consumers, with a device that uses sunlight to produce both hydrogen and electricity.

The UCLA device is a hybrid unit that combines a supercapacitor with a hydrogen fuel cell, and runs the whole shebang on solar power. Along with the usual positive and negative electrodes, the device has a third electrode that can either store energy electrically or use it to split water into its constituent hydrogen and oxygen atoms – a process called water electrolysis.

To make the electrodes as efficient as possible, the team maximized the amount of surface area that comes into contact with water, right down to the nanoscale. That increases the amount of hydrogen the system can produce, as well as how much energy the supercapacitor can store.

"People need fuel to run their vehicles and electricity to run their devices," says Richard Kaner, senior author of the study. "Now you can make both fuel and electricity with a single device."

Hydrogen itself may be clean, but producing it on a commercial scale might not be. It's often created by converting natural gas, which not only results in a lot of carbon dioxide emissions but can be costly. Using renewable sources like solar can help solve both of those problems at once. And it helps that the UCLA device uses materials like nickel, iron and cobalt, which are much more abundant than the precious metals like platinum that are currently used to produce hydrogen.

"Hydrogen is a great fuel for vehicles: It is the cleanest fuel known, it's cheap and it puts no pollutants into the air – just water," says Kaner. "And this could dramatically lower the cost of hydrogen cars."

The UCLA device could help lower the cost of hydrogen as a fuel source for vehicles
Reed Hutchinson/UCLA

The new system could also help solve some of the infrastructure woes as well. Hydrogen vehicles can't really take off until consumers can easily find places to fill up, and while strides are being made in that department, with the UCLA device users can hook into the sun almost anywhere to produce their own fuel, which could be particularly handy for those living in rural or remote areas.

As an added bonus, the supercapacitor part of the system can chemically store the harvested solar energy as hydrogen. Doing so could help bolster energy storage for the grid. Although the current device is palm-sized, the researchers say that it should be relatively easy to scale up for those applications.

The research was published in the journal Energy Storage Materials.

Source: UCLA

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7 comments
Harry van Trotsenburg
1 Also H2O is a greenhouse gas. Short "living"but still ;
2 When a lot of engines work on H2, this will also affect our temperature / rainfall, even our climate?
3 Storage of H2 is a large problem ....
4 What are the costs? Efficiency?
James Sullivan
Just another variation of what Stanley Meyer was doing back in the 70's.
Fast Eddie
Nice that work is going on....but it is going to be a long time before such a system can be commercialized. 40 years?
Dennis Zogbi
I’ve studied the patent arch in the course of my business on this technology and I am a deep supporter. I also envision the reintroduction of the dirigible as a safe, quiet non invasive way to merge with the environment, especially in an #individual dirigible. Let’s have a conference.
Penguin
Hmm, "relatively easy to scale up for those applications" famous last words! Big Hippy doesn't like the sound of 'hydrogen' anyway, don't they make BOMBS out of that stuff, maaaaaan? Hydrogen is the perfect fuel but it's the lightest element and you have to compress the crap out of it to make it practical for most purposes, and THAT takes a whack of energy! Eventually everything will run on hydrogen, because all the hydrocarbons have been burned, in 10,000 years or so!
EZ
If it's really that good, it'll never see the light of day. DARPA has way of getting it's own way.
Douglas Bennett Rogers
Hydrogen bombs provide far and away the most efficient energy source. The only application, other than weapons, so far is the Orion Project. The global economy is, as yet, no where near big enough for this.