Reducing Platinum and Adding Gold: Three Inventions That Increase Fuel Cell Efficiency and Decrease...
Fuel cells are indispensable for hydrogen powered cars, and it looks like hydrogen may be the ultimate energy storage that meets all the demands of a clean "fuel" (though it's only a carrier, not a fuel). Fuel cells, are expensive, though, and their price is due to platinum, which is a rare metal.
New Catalyst for Electrolysis Reduces Costs by 97% and Increases Hydrogen Production Fourfold
Hydrogen, the cleanest energy storage in the Universe, is most of the time associated with high costs, although it is extracted from water, which is the cheapest yet the most precious element to life. Extracting hydrogen from water is done through a method called electrolysis, but doing electrolysis efficiently requires the usage of catalysts such as platinum, which is very expensive.
Daniel Nocera Coming Back With Better Material for Splitting Water
Daniel Nocera, a face we see more and more often on the stage of alternative energy, along with postdoctoral researcher Mircea Dinca and graduate...
New Metal Catalyst 70 Times Cheaper Than Platinum Splits Water Efficiently
A team of researchers from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of California, Berkeley, has discovered a catalyst metal 70 times cheaper than platinum for use in electrolysis systems, to generate hydrogen from water.
Electrode Surface Texture: Key to Using Less Platinum in Methanol Fuel Cells
MIT researchers, along with their colleagues from the Brookhaven National Laboratory and the Japan Institute of Science and Technology have found a method of decreasing the amount of platinum used in DMFCs by increasing the efficiency of the fuel cell's electrodes. Others have tried to replace the platinum on the cathode with a liquid regenerating catalyst system (catholyte solution).
Dealloying Process Creates More Efficient and Cheaper Platinum for Fuel Cells
Fuel cells are usually expensive because they use platinum as a catalyst. To make them more appealing to the market, researchers from the DOE's National Accelerator Laboratory and the University of Houston, have created a new type of platinum catalyst, reducing the use of the pure metal down to 80 or even 70 percent, thus reducing the overall cost.
Ames Scientists Studying Way to Enhance Hydrogen Storage Nanomaterials
Vitalij Pecharsky, a researcher from the U.S. DOE - Ames Laboratory, along with his team, studies the possibility of storing hydrogen at room temperatures, in a recyclable container - just like your car's reservoir.
Hopes for Solar-Powered Hydrogen by New Virus-Based Artificial Photosynthesis System
A team of researchers from the MIT, led by Professor Angela Belcher, used a modified virus as a biological scaffold for assembling the nanoscale components needed to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. The bacterial virus is called "M13", and it's said to be harmless.
On-Demand Hydrogen Production System for Commercial Use Released
eHydrogen Solutions, a company specialized in the development of on-demand hydrogen power stations, issued a press release announcing that they launched the "H2-Reactor Development Project". The H2-Reactor uses water as the hydrogen source, is self-contained and has an alloy of aluminum or magnesium as the reactive material (to get the hydrogen out of the oxygen bond).
Zinc Oxide Crystal Acting as Piezoelectric Material To Get Hydrogen From Water
A team of researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison have just discovered that crystals of zinc oxide, if submerged, absorb its vibrations and act like a piezoelectric material, developing areas of strong negative and positive charges.
