UCLA Researchers Use Solar To Create and Store Hydrogen (phys.org)

UCLA researchers have designed a device that can use solar energy to inexpensively and efficiently create and store energy, which could be used to power electronic devices, and to create hydrogen fuel for eco-friendly cars. Phys.Org reports: The device could make hydrogen cars affordable for many more consumers because it produces hydrogen using nickel, iron and cobalt -- elements that are much more abundant and less expensive than the platinum and other precious metals that are currently used to produce hydrogen fuel. Traditional hydrogen fuel cells and supercapacitors have two electrodes: one positive and one negative. The device developed at UCLA has a third electrode that acts as both a supercapacitor, which stores energy, and as a device for splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen, a process called water electrolysis. All three electrodes connect to a single solar cell that serves as the device's power source, and the electrical energy harvested by the solar cell can be stored in one of two ways: electrochemically in the supercapacitor or chemically as hydrogen. The device also is a step forward because it produces hydrogen fuel in an environmentally friendly way. Currently, about 95 percent of hydrogen production worldwide comes from converting fossil fuels such as natural gas into hydrogen -- a process that releases large quantities of carbon dioxide into the air, said Maher El-Kady, a UCLA postdoctoral researcher and a co-author of the research. The technology is described in the journal Energy Storage Materials.

Comments

so...

[Anonymous Coward]

So it's a standard electrolysis but with a solar panel, and a switch to charge a super capacitor instead of performing electrolysis?

Re:so...

[ShanghaiBill]

Here is the abstract with a link to buy the paper. After reading the abstract, it still isn't clear to me what is "new" about this. If it is really just more inexpensive catalysts, then why include the "solar" angle, since that would irrelevant to the actual science? It would work just as well with electricity from any source.

Re:so...

[Mr D from 63]

It doesn't store hydrogen, they seem to make the case that they can store the electrical energy and simply produce it on demand fast enough to use as a fuel, which is ridiculous.

They did a good job of including all the buzz words that folks love; Fuel cell, solar, storage, cars for the masses, cheap and environmentally friendly, dramatically lower cost, green, not reliant of fossil fuels, huge advance (like cell phone camera), distinquished professor...

Did AI generate this?

Turn CO2 back into coal

[jfdavis668]

How about inventing one that takes CO2 out of the air, and turns it back into coal? Then we can employ all the out of work coal miners to put it back where it came from.

Re:Turn CO2 back into coal

[Baron_Yam]

There are, in fact, ways to extract CO2 and turn it into fuel we can burn again, closing the carbon cycle. Trees are nature's method for it.

Artificial methods just aren't cost effective yet.

The bright side

[Okian Warrior]

Hey, look at the bright side.

From the OP, we now know that the process of splitting water is called "water electrolysis".

That's the sort of information I come to Slashdot for!

A brief scan of the abstract, note that it uses "oxygen evolution reaction" with the acronym "OER" instead of "produces oxygen", uses LDH without defining it ("Layered Double Hydroxide"), "dual functionalities ... have been achieved" instead of "dual functions", or just "functions as both <a> and <b>",

Taking a sentence at random, and plugging it into an online analyzer results in:

Indication of the number of years of formal education that a person requires in order to easily understand the text on the first reading: (Gunning Fog index) 18.90

With a Flesch Reading Ease : 27.75

That's a pretty high level of jargon, almost reaching the level of techno-babble.

(The sentence: "When employed as the positive electrode in a supercapacitor, along with activated carbon as the negative electrode in an asymmetric configuration, the ultrathin and porous Ni-Co-Fe LDH nanoplatelets delivered an ultrahigh specific energy of 57.")

Cobalt

[afidel]

Cobalt is the limiting agent for mass production of current chemistry lithium batteries so starting research on a new energy storage system and relying on Cobalt is stupid. Cobalt is currently only produced as a byproduct if Aluminum smelting and without a massive uptick in Aluminum usage there isn't going to be enough to electrify more than ~10 of world-wide vehicle fleets yet we have politicians deciding we're going to ban ICE vehicles in 20 years or less. Trying to divert that limiting resource from a competing tech that has a 20 year head start on economic development is a sure way to fail.

Re:Why

[N3wsByt3]

*sigh*

What has Slashdot come to? :-/

https://www.wattfuelcell.com/d...

The number 3 is an underestimation, if anything. At least if you're looking at cars (EV) vs. hydrogen cars. that's because it's very inefficient to first produce hydrogen with solar (electrolysis), then put them in fuelcells of cars, which in turn have to use the energy of those cells (and have additional loss at the conversion once again).

It's simple to see that directly using electricity to and from batteries are far more efficient.