The claim here is that a nickel borate catalyst can hugely improve oxygen separation in electrolysis by a factor of two hundred and this hopefully allows inexpensive water breakdown into hydrogen and oxygen.
The promise has always been there but a practical method was not. Quite obviously, storing energy by separating water is a great idea and beats other battery protocols any day. The fuel cell allows efficient recombination and power production so the reversal of the process is pretty good.
On top of all that it is not necessary to actually ship the oxygen since we live in an ocean of it.
The problem has simply been the lack of a cost effective method of separation. This may be it. We still have the aggravation of storing hydrogen but big applications can solve that.
Large power plants will possibly store energy as hydrogen during the non peak times provided the cost of separation is low enough for it to work. The real hydrogen economy will be the ability to store hydrogen for peak power usage while distribution continues to be electrical.
It plausibly could double our present power capacity if all waste power can be captured.
200-fold boost in fuel cell efficiency advances “personalized energy systems”
BOSTON, Aug. 23, 2010 — The era of personalized energy systems — in which individual homes and small businesses produce their own energy for heating, cooling and powering cars — took another step toward reality today as scientists reported discovery of a powerful new catalyst that is a key element in such a system. They described the advance, which could help free homes and business from dependence on the electric company and the corner gasoline station, at the 240th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society, being held here this week.
“Our goal is to make each home its own power station,” said study leader Daniel Nocera, Ph.D. “We’re working toward development of ‘personalized’ energy units that can be manufactured, distributed and installed inexpensively. There certainly are major obstacles to be overcome — existing fuel cells and solar cells must be improved, for instance. Nevertheless, one can envision villages in India and Africa not long from now purchasing an affordable basic system.”
Such a system would consist of rooftop solar energy panels to produce electricity for heating, cooking, lighting, and to charge the batteries on the homeowners’ electric cars. Surplus electricity would go to an “electrolyzer,” a device that breaks down ordinary water into its two components, hydrogen and oxygen. Both would be stored in tanks. In the dark of night, when the solar panels cease production, the system would shift gears, feeding the stored hydrogen and oxygen into a fuel cell that produces electricity (and clean drinking water as a byproduct). Such a system would produce clean electricity 24 hours a day, seven days a week — even when the sun isn’t shining.
Nocera’s report focused on the electrolyzer, which needs catalysts — materials that jump start chemical reactions like the ones that break water up into hydrogen and oxygen. He is with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Mass. Good catalysts already are available for the part of the electrolyzer that produces hydrogen. Lacking, however, have been inexpensive, long-lasting catalysts for the production of oxygen. The new catalyst fills that gap and boosts oxygen production by 200-fold. It eliminates the need for expensive platinum catalysts and potentially toxic chemicals used in making them.
The new catalyst has been licensed to Sun Catalytix, which envisions developing safe, super-efficient versions of the electrolyzer, suitable for homes and small businesses, within two years.
The National Science Foundation and the Chesonis Family Foundation provided funding for this study. Nocera did the research with post-doctoral researcher Mircea Dinca and doctoral candidate Yogesh Surendranath. The U.S.
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