Tag Archives: hydrogen
Researchers at Virginia Tech have discovered a way to extract large quantities of hydrogen from any plant, a breakthrough that has the potential to be a low-cost, environmentally friendly fuel source. Associate Proffessor Y.H. Percival Zhang and his team have succeeded in using xylose, the most abundant simple plant sugar, to produce a large quantity of hydrogen. The method can use any source of biomass. Unlike previous methods of producing hydrogen from biomass, which are expensive and release greenhouse gases, the new process releases almost no greenhouse gasses and does not require costly materials or heavy metals. The hydrogen is … Continue Reading
The problem with hydrogen fuel cells has been the cost of the platinum required as a catalyst. Now, scientists at the University of Cambridge have found that cobalt can function as an efficient catalyst at room temperature in pH neutral water surrounded by oxygen. Cobalt is relatively abundant and, therefore, inexpensive. Lead author of the research, Dr Erwin Reisner, said that “Our research has shown that inexpensive materials such as cobalt are suitable to fulfil this challenging requirement. Of course, many hurdles such as the rather poor stability of the catalyst remain to be addressed, but our finding provides a … Continue Reading
Engineers at the University of New South Wales have developed a light weight, nano-engineered material that can store and release hydrogen, overcoming a major hurdle to its use as an alternative fuel source. The engineers have synthesised nanoparticles of sodium borohydride and encased these inside nickel shells. The unique "core-shell" nanostructure has remarkable hydrogen storage properties, including the ability to release energy at much lower temperatures than previously observed. Borohydrides were known to be effective storage materials for hydrogen but it was believed that once the energy was released it could not be reabsorbed. However, Dr Kondo-Francois Aguey-Zinsou, lead author … Continue Reading
Researchers, led by Professor Juan Bisquert, from the Universitat Jaume I in Spain, have developed a device which uses semiconductor materials to generate hydrogen from water using only sunlight. Hydrogen is an extremely abundant element on Earth's surface – but in combination with oxygen as water (H20). The hydrogen molecule (H2) contains a great amount of energy that can be released when burned producing water as the result of this combustion process. The research team used nanotechnology to develop a semiconductor device which is submerged in a solution consisting of a catalyst in water. When illuminated with light, hydrogen gas bubbles form … Continue Reading
Erik Koepf, a doctoral candidate at the University of Delaware, has designed a novel reactor that uses highly concentrated sunlight to produce hydrogen from water. The basic idea is to is to create a small, well-insulated cavity and subject it to highly concentrated sunlight. Zinc oxide powder, fed into the cavity, decomposes into zinc vapour and oxygen. The zinc is extracted and reacted with water to produce hydrogen and zinc oxide, which can be fed back into the reactor. The prototype reactor, which resembles a large cylinder, consists of layers of advanced, ultra-high temperature insulation and ceramic materials. The reactor … Continue Reading
Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory have developed an efficient two-step process that electrolyzes hydrogen atoms from water molecules before combining them to make molecular hydrogen. Hydrogen has huge potential applications, especialy in fuel cells, and, even now, approximately 2% of all electric power generated in the United States is dedicated to the production of molecular hydrogen. Currently, most hydrogen is extracted from natural gas – a process that uses a great deal of energy and produces large carbon dioxide emissions. To date, most experiments in extracting hydrogen from water by electrolysis have relied on special … Continue Reading
Researchers at the Universities of Kentucky and Louisville have determined that an inexpensive semiconductor alloy can be "tweaked" to generate hydrogen from water using sunlight. The team has demonstrated that an alloy formed by a 2% substitution of antimony in gallium nitride has the right electrical properties to enable solar light to split water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen. When the alloy is immersed in water and exposed to sunlight, the chemical bond between the hydrogen and oxygen molecules in water is broken and the hydrogen can be collected. Gallium nitride is a semiconductor that is in widespread use to … Continue Reading
Researchers at Virginia Tech, Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the University of Georgia have produced hydrogen gas pure enough to power a fuel cell from cellulosic materials (from wood chips) using a mixture of 14 enzymes, one coenzyme and water heated to about 32°C. Jonathan Mielenz, leader of the Bioconversion Science and Technology Group at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory said that "It is exciting because using cellulose instead of starch expands the renewable resource for producing hydrogen to include biomass." The "one pot" process involves three advances a novel combination of enzymes an increased hydrogen generation rate — to … Continue Reading
According to a new study by Stanford researcher Mark Jacobson and Mark Delucchi, of the University of California-Davis, by 2030 all new energy generation could come from wind, water and solar, and by 2050, all pre-existing energy production could be converted to renewables, using only technology that is already available and at a similar cost to using fossil fuels. Their plan calls for using wind, water and solar energy to generate power, with wind and solar power contributing 90 percent of the needed energy. Geothermal and hydroelectric sources would each contribute about 4 percent with the remaining 2 percent from wave … Continue Reading
A team of researchers at the University of Sydney has developed crystals full of microscopic holes that can capture gases like carbon dioxide. The scientists designed them to be used in facilities like power stations but they could have many other applications such as storing hydrogen or separating methane from nitrogen and carbon dioxide in natural gas.. According to Dr Deanna D’Alessandro, the chief researcher on the project, "You could think of them a little bit like your kitchen sponge but in our case they are actually metal centres linked by organic bridging ligands and basically they form this massive … Continue Reading
Videos
Renewables News- Dysol Aiming to Print Storage with Solar CellsAustralia's Dyesol Limited has acquired an equity stake in Printed Power Pte Ltd, a spinoff company of Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. Printed Power is focussing on integrating dye solar cell technology with printed storage and power management systems to … Continue Reading → […]
- CSIRO Printer Makes 10m of Solar Cells a MinuteCSIRO researchers have built a gigantic printer that spits out solar cells at a rate of about ten metres a minute. The printer system uses existing technology to embed polymer solar cells (also known as organic solar cells) in thin … Continue Reading → […]
- New Aussie Technology to Clean Polluted WaterScientists from Deakin University, together with French colleagues, say that they have manufactured a lightweight and reusable material that can absorb up to 33 times its weight in a wide range of spilt oils, chemical solvents and dyes, while repelling … Continue Reading → […]
- Dysol Aiming to Print Storage with Solar Cells
