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Solar Panel Splits Water To Produce Hydrogen (ieee.org)
schwit1 shares a report from IEEE Spectrum: A team at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, or KU Leuven, says it has developed a solar panel that converts sunlight directly into hydrogen using moisture in the air. The prototype takes the water vapor and splits it into hydrogen and oxygen molecules. If it scales successfully, the technology could help address a major challenge facing the hydrogen economy. A small but growing number of facilities are producing "green" hydrogen using electrolysis, which splits water molecules using electricity -- ideally from renewable sources such as wind and solar. Other researchers, including the team in Belgium, are developing what's called direct solar water-splitting technologies. These use chemical and biological components to split water directly on the solar panel, forgoing the need for large, expensive electrolysis plants.
KU Leuven sits on a grassy campus in Flanders, the Dutch-speaking northern region of Belgium. Earlier this month, professor Johan Martens and his team at the Center for Surface Chemistry and Catalysis announced their prototype could produce 250 liters of hydrogen per day on average over a full year, which they claim is a world record. A family living in a well-insulated Belgian house could use about 20 of these panels to meet their power and heating needs during an entire year, they predict. The solar panel measures 1.65 meters long -- roughly the height of a kitchen refrigerator, or this reporter -- and has a rated power output of about 210 watts. The system can convert 15 percent of the solar energy it receives into hydrogen, the team says. That's a significant leap from 0.1 percent efficiency they first achieved 10 years ago.
KU Leuven sits on a grassy campus in Flanders, the Dutch-speaking northern region of Belgium. Earlier this month, professor Johan Martens and his team at the Center for Surface Chemistry and Catalysis announced their prototype could produce 250 liters of hydrogen per day on average over a full year, which they claim is a world record. A family living in a well-insulated Belgian house could use about 20 of these panels to meet their power and heating needs during an entire year, they predict. The solar panel measures 1.65 meters long -- roughly the height of a kitchen refrigerator, or this reporter -- and has a rated power output of about 210 watts. The system can convert 15 percent of the solar energy it receives into hydrogen, the team says. That's a significant leap from 0.1 percent efficiency they first achieved 10 years ago.
This is what the Martians did. They became a full hydrogen economy. They converted a lot of their planet's water into hydrogen and it escaped into space! They didn't have enough fresh water left to sustain their economies. The resulting wars left lots of craters.
And their atmosphere got so thin without moisture that it was blown away by the solar winds. Over thousands of years, the solar radiation and planetary dust storms degraded everything and turned it all to dust.
210 Watts peak * 15% efficiency
WP already includes the efficiency figure, it's the maximum power put out by the panel under ideal conditions. At peak production, 210 W will go into hydrogen production.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
The panel uses
catalysts, membranes, and adsorbents
Those sound a lot like consumables to me. That's the question with any "breakthrough" of this sort is just how much stuff does it consume and how much does that stuff end up costing (in energy, carbon emissions and pollution as well as monetarily).
Solar panels are pretty dang amazing as they are static and essentially last forever (or at least for multiple decades), unlike pretty much every other form of energy generation we know of. So by associating the hydrogen generation with solar panels they are asserting that kind of longevity and hands-off operation.
Better known as 318230.
Probably easier to use classic PV panels and a separate electrolysis cell.
There are electrolysis cells that can directly provide 120-200 bar hydrogen without an additional compressor.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...