UCLA researchers have designed a new energy device that could help power electronics and create hydrogen fuel for green vehicles.
According to the researchers, their invention could make hydrogen cars more affordable as it produces hydrogen using the abundantly found – and less expensive – nickel, iron and cobalt.
The technology could be especially useful in rural areas, or to military units serving in remote locations, contends senior author and UCLA distinguished professor Richard Kaner: “People need fuel to run their vehicles and electricity to run their devices. Now you can make both electricity and fuel with a single device.”
It could also be part of a solution for large cities that need ways to store surplus electricity from their electrical grids: “If you could convert electricity to hydrogen, you could store it indefinitely,” said Kaner, who also is a member of UCLA’s California NanoSystems Institute.
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, intones Maher El-Kady, a UCLA postdoctoral researcher and a co-author of the research. Using solar cells and abundantly available elements to split water into hydrogen and oxygen has enormous potential for reducing the cost of hydrogen production.
Currently, about 95 percent of hydrogen production worldwide comes from converting C02-emitting fossil fuels such as natural gas into hydrogen.
Image and content: Reed Hutchinson/UCLA
