New Solar Cell Harvests Hydrogen From Water

Engadgets is reporting that researchers at Penn State have built a new kind of solar cell that can harvest hydrogen directly from water. "The folks at Penn State have now developed a process that more closely mimics the photosynthesis process in plants, and while we won't pretend to understand all the nitty gritty of dye usage and other such nonsense, we do know that such a system could eventually attain 15% or so efficiency, providing a nice and clean way to gather power for that fuel cell car of the future."

Comments

Re:15% efficiency

[PrescriptionWarning]

i think thats 40% towards creating electricity, this is 15% towards creating pure Hydrogen

Re:could eventually

[SuperBanana]

Isn't "could eventually" one of those warning phrases that tells you something is dubious, like "up to twice as long" or "she has a great personality" or "you're violating our patents but we don't want to tell you which ones"?

Or "we'll develop it and then an 'energy company' which is a front for an oil conglomerate will swoop in and buy up all the intellectual property and sit on it."

You don't need high efficiency though...

[brunes69]

Efficiency is not so important in this application because of the useage of your typical car. A car typically sits around for 75% of the day doing nothing. This whole time this process could be converting water into hydrogen.

The only time it would not work is during long highway trips. During these times some kind of accelerated process or hydrogen filling station would be needed.

Re:You don't need high efficiency though...

[tina juarez]

But you need time... I think I will continue to drive electric for at least 10 more years... again;-} I just couldn't wait any longer for fuel cell tech to "come to market" and have "adjusted" to lead-acid battery just fine - low tech is better than no tech

Re:You don't need high efficiency though...

[CommunistHamster]

That would require a large network of small pipes all across the painted surfaces of the car to bring the water to the paint. This would be rather complex but not undoable. You would have to consider the possibility of any small dents as well, and ensure that that doesn't ruin the whole network.

Re:15% efficiency

[TheRaven64]

I disagree. Lots of the best places for solar collection are a long way away from human habitation. If you can efficiently produce hydrogen (or, better, an energy-dense hydrocarbon) in these places then you can easily transport it to where it is needed.

What they know

[jgoemat]

[...] while we won't pretend to understand all the nitty gritty of dye usage and other such nonsense, we do know that such a system could eventually attain 15% or so efficiency, providing a nice and clean way to gather power for that fuel cell car of the future.

So they don't even pretend to understand how it works, but they know it can eventually attain 15% or so efficiency.

Re:Yawnnn

[Anonymous Coward]

That relies on the tech that the cells are driving playing nice. Look around at the tech we have - playing nice isn't something that many engineers do. Many go for the cheap option, or the convienient option, not the one that serves the greater good.

It's more likely that the exhaust from these systems would be released into the atmosphere and effectively lost from the system.

Even if you do filter most of it back in, you still have to increase the capacity of your sewage/treatment plants and your pipelines (may not be possible in many existing cities) to match. There are huge costs and service disruptions inherent in that that many countries will not be able to afford.

  And you still have the problem that a failure of any kind in the water system (drought, a burst main or dam, geological activity) would have a nice new force multiplier to play with.

Key infastructure should be independant as far as possible. Slaving one to the other like this can't be a good idea...

Re:15% efficiency

[tixxit]

Electricity is definitely more important, but the question is, how do you store that electricity? Batteries are expensive, heavy, and wear out pretty quickly with a lot of use. Hydrogen can easily be stored in a tank, then converted (quickly) to electricity with hydrogen fuel cells. This is why hydrogen is seen as the saviour of electric cars; they make them practical. The only problem is getting hydrogen. This technology promises a way we could create hydrogen, perhaps at our house, that could then be used in our cars (or whatever else).

Re:mod up

[Anonymous Coward]

Parent is first one to point out storage benefit...

Grandparent missed to point out that good storage doesn't only mean to transport energy in space, but also in time -- for later use. So, pure electrons really don't cut it ...

Re:Wrong.

[misleb]

I'm not going to waste my time digging up the numbers to refute this.

Go ahead and try. Electricity is far more valuable than chemical fuels. You can do so much more with it with much more efficiency. Electric cars, for example, run at, what, 90% efficiency? Electric heat pumps can actually get more heat in your home than they use to do it. You can produce light very efficiently as well. Ever try to light your home with natural gas? Electricity is the universal form of energy with the highest value, joule for joule.

I'm repeating myself in this thread, I know, but this point is very important:

The ONLY reason that chemical fuels seem valuable now is because we essentially get them for free. Or rather, all the work has already been done to store the energy. We just need to dig it up, refine it a bit, and get it where it is needed. If there ever came a time when there was no natural hydrocabons available, we'd very quickly realize just what a waste chemical fuels are.

Re: no free lunches

[Junior J. Junior III]

So, this is also exactly why we also don't drive around in portable oil refineries. A slightly more clever arrangement of the involved technolgoies could prove surprisingly useful in real-world applications.