From Stanford University something familiar to most anyone who has taken science – electrolysis of water into hydrogen and oxygen.
Stanford scientists develop a water splitter that runs on an ordinary AAA battery
In 2015, American consumers will finally be able to purchase fuel cell cars from Toyota and other manufacturers. Although touted as zero-emissions vehicles, most of the cars will run on hydrogen made from natural gas, a fossil fuel that contributes to global warming.
Now scientists at Stanford University have developed a low-cost, emissions-free device that uses an ordinary AAA battery to produce hydrogen by water electrolysis. The battery sends an electric current through two electrodes that split liquid water into hydrogen and oxygen gas. Unlike other water splitters that use precious-metal catalysts, the electrodes in the Stanford device are made of inexpensive and abundant nickel and iron.
“Using nickel and iron, which are cheap materials, we were able to make the electrocatalysts active enough to split water at room temperature with a single 1.5-volt battery,” said Hongjie Dai, a professor of chemistry at Stanford. “This is the first time anyone has used non-precious metal catalysts to split water at a voltage that low. It’s quite remarkable, because normally you need expensive metals, like platinum or iridium, to achieve that voltage.”
In addition to producing hydrogen, the novel water splitter could be used to make chlorine gas and sodium hydroxide, another important industrial chemical, according to Dai. He and his colleagues describe the new device in a study published in the Aug. 22 issue of the journal Nature Communications.
The promise of hydrogen
Automakers have long considered the hydrogen fuel cell a promising alternative to the gasoline engine. Fuel cell technology is essentially water splitting in reverse. A fuel cell combines stored hydrogen gas with oxygen from the air to produce electricity, which powers the car. The only byproduct is water – unlike gasoline combustion, which emits carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas.
Earlier this year, Hyundai began leasing fuel cell vehicles in Southern California. Toyota and Honda will begin selling fuel cell cars in 2015. Most of these vehicles will run on fuel manufactured at large industrial plants that produce hydrogen by combining very hot steam and natural gas, an energy-intensive process that releases carbon dioxide as a byproduct.
Splitting water to make hydrogen requires no fossil fuels and emits no greenhouse gases. But scientists have yet to develop an affordable, active water splitter with catalysts capable of working at industrial scales.
“It’s been a constant pursuit for decades to make low-cost electrocatalysts with high activity and long durability,” Dai said. “When we found out that a nickel-based catalyst is as effective as platinum, it came as a complete surprise.”
Saving energy and money
The discovery was made by Stanford graduate student Ming Gong, co-lead author of the study. “Ming discovered a nickel-metal/nickel-oxide structure that turns out to be more active than pure nickel metal or pure nickel oxide alone,” Dai said. “This novel structure favors hydrogen electrocatalysis, but we still don’t fully understand the science behind it.”
The nickel/nickel-oxide catalyst significantly lowers the voltage required to split water, which could eventually save hydrogen producers billions of dollars in electricity costs, according to Gong. His next goal is to improve the durability of the device.
“The electrodes are fairly stable, but they do slowly decay over time,” he said. “The current device would probably run for days, but weeks or months would be preferable. That goal is achievable based on my most recent results.”
The researchers also plan to develop a water splitter than runs on electricity produced by solar energy.
“Hydrogen is an ideal fuel for powering vehicles, buildings and storing renewable energy on the grid,” said Dai. “We’re very glad that we were able to make a catalyst that’s very active and low cost. This shows that through nanoscale engineering of materials we can really make a difference in how we make fuels and consume energy.”
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Hydrolysis is new?
“The only byproduct is water – unlike gasoline combustion, which emits carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas.”
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Damn near spewed my coffee when I read this line!
‘A fuel cell combines stored hydrogen gas with oxygen from the air to produce electricity, which powers the car. The only byproduct is water – unlike gasoline combustion, which emits carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas.’
Whaaat?? “Only byproduct is water – unlike … carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas.” So water vapor’s not a greenhouse gas? Really? Wow, has this science gotten perverse. I guess it’s considered difficult (as well it should be) to tell the general public that water is a pollutant so they haven’t gotten quite that far yet. But, water vapor is, undeniably, the major – by massive orders of magnitude – greenhouse gas. However, they can demonize carbon dioxide, which is every bit as essential for life on this planet as water, simply because it has a chemical name.
Joe Romm wrote a book in 2005 titled The Hype About Hydrogen:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Hype-About-Hydrogen-Fiction/dp/1559637048/ref=cm_cr-mr-title
If Joe Romm (yes, thee Joe Romm of Climate Progress) thinks it’s hyped …
I’ve long thought it would make sense if wind turbines and PV installations spent their time making H2 (and O2) and shove it in a pipeline. The gases are easier to store than electricity, so they could just sit there and do their thing and not worry about destabilizing the grid. Heck, you could use the H2 in various peak load plants.
I assume one reason it’s not done is that the eficiency of electrolysis must be low. Does anyone have some numbers handy? The press release doesn’t (except for battery voltages, but that’s not a measure of efficiency).
A few years ago the MIT press machine make a big noise about their breaktrhrough in electrolysis and presented it as making PV panels practical. The spinoff compny for that is still around, but is trying to branch off into other areas.
It was obviously a PR mistake to choose the AAA battery as a power source as it has provided a nuisance distraction for neoliths present. Obviously the AAA battery was meant only to be illustrative of the low energy needed for the process.
The second mistake is to present this as a potential perpetual motion machine that needs only a drop of water, a splitter, and a hydrogen engine driving an electric generator that will run forever.
““Hydrogen is an ideal fuel for powering vehicles, buildings and storing renewable energy on the grid,” said Dai.”
That may be true in the sense that there is a lot of energy in Hydrogen and it is relatively easy to use Hydrogen in existing internal combustion engine designs, but I have a bit of experience using Hydrogen in regular piston engines and the metals exposed to that Hydrogen become very brittle over time. As far as I know this problem has not yet been solved.
Hi Richard Courtney ….we had good discussions on Climate Skeptics.
I have a question. I am totally convinced my mileage has improved 3+ over several dozen tests including draining my tank and using precisely measured fuel quantities. I run the same flat route until I run out. I have tried to remove all variables including speed. I am assuming my balanced power loss involves my battery and it’s lifespan. Am I wrong about where the increased MPG is balanced with energy cost. My system is not explosive since there I no storage. Doug Danhoff
PS. Are you still enjoying your boat?
Electrolysis is now a new discovery in the age of climatocracy. lol.
A stainless steel nail and am iron nail….how innovative.
if this could be scaled up enough it might be one solution to the storage problem associated with connection of wind and solar power to the grid. Sounds better than molten metal batteries the size of Kansas anyway. I’m thinking however that we’d want to keep the stored H far away from any centers of population and certainly out of every house and garage. But then what do I know? I was a mere computer engineer after all……..
We are told repeatedly by ‘experts’ in various disciplines here on WUWT, that f the mechanism for ‘an observed effect’ is not known (e.g. changes in climate due to Solar variation ) then the ‘that observed effect’ is imaginary. Therefore, as this paper states: “This novel structure favors hydrogen electrocatalysis, but we still don’t fully understand the science behind it.”, this electrolysis is obviously imaginary.
If hydrogen electrocatalysis is accepted as actually happening then perhaps the experts repeatedly demanding a precise ‘mechanism for an observed effect’ will cease to do so in future.
Well Thermo King, a maker of refrigerated trailers and refer units came out with a water splitter for use on diesel tractors about 5 years ago. Water from the exhaust cycled through a splitter and the hydrogen injected into the fuel system. My company tested five units and one was on my truck. Fuel energy produced did not compensate for the weight of the unit. I notice that Thermo King no longer even lists it at the website as they did before.
littlepeaks says:
August 22, 2014 at 8:16 am
Me too, except I didn’t bother to clean the electrodes and never produced enough gas to be worthwhile (this was probably junior high). I tried using salt to make the water more conductive. It didn’t occur to me it would make chlorine, but yeah, if you need some Cl, that works.
[Further off topic] I bought some lye (NaOH) to clean out a clogged drain. The warning label said not to use in aluminum containers. A little thought and a container made out of Al foil, then upgraded to a soda bottle with strips of foil produced enough gas to prove by ignition that it was H2. It doesn’t even consume the NaOH!
A 350 block with a 400 crank gives you a 383 Chevy
350 + 400 = 383?
What is this, climate science math?
I rated the post as poor. PR fluff getting in the way of real science. And it is a perfect example of Heinlein’s “artful ways of lying, type 1.”
Splitting water to make hydrogen requires no fossil fuels and emits no greenhouse gases.
While true, splitting water takes large amounts of energy that must come from some source.
But scientists have yet to develop an affordable, active water splitter with catalysts capable of working at industrial scales.
What is an “active water splitter”?
“It’s been a constant pursuit for decades to make low-cost electrocatalysts with high activity and long durability,”
No doubt.
“When we found out that a nickel-based catalyst is as effective as platinum, it came as a complete surprise.”
….“Ming discovered a nickel-metal/nickel-oxide structure that turns out to be more active than pure nickel metal or pure nickel oxide alone,” Dai said. “This novel structure favors hydrogen electrocatalysis, but we still don’t fully understand the science behind it.”
“Complete surprise”?? Nickel, Palladium, Platinum are in the same column of the Periodic Table, Various combinations of Nickel have been tried as electrodes for a century. What might be surprising is that they have happened upon a nickel compound crystal structure that works to give a powerful surface configuration for electrolysis.
The nickel/nickel-oxide catalyst significantly lowers the voltage required to split water, which could eventually save hydrogen producers billions of dollars in electricity costs,
A pity they don’t give some data on how much the voltage is lowered, or how much efficiency was improved.
“The electrodes are fairly stable, but they do slowly decay [dissolve?] over time,” he said. “The current device would probably run for days, but weeks or months would be preferable. That goal is achievable based on my most recent results.”
Good luck to you. But somehow I feel that many other researchers have said the same thing before.
So one wonders what is happening to the unmentioned aqueous solution over the life the anode. Are they making a water pollution problem to solve an air pollution problem?
OMG, I have to agree with Steve Mosher’s comments above. Well reasoned critique is fine, snark is evidence of a character flaw. Who knows what this could lead to?
Fossil fuel? All signs point to abiotic.
Reminds me of the carbon arc from Boy Mechanic I made over fifty years ago in the basement. My parents never knew about it. It called for two carbon cores from C cell batteries, a jar with salt water and electrodes. Very bright and hot.
Equipment is a NRE, so making the system with even vastly cheaper material, does little to impact business viability. It it is impractical with platinum, it will be impractical with nickle.
Assuming that the production of hydrogen becomes cost effective and safe, why not run it thru a secondary catalytic reaction and combine with carbon to form long chain hydrocarbons. Something that is safe to transport and has high energy density.
CD (@CD153) says:
August 22, 2014 at 8:34 am
The fuel cell systems I’m familiar with run at a pretty high temperature, so they’ll produce water vapor. I don’t know about your state, but here in New Hampshire we don’t worry much about water vapor from IC engines. Perhaps it will be a problem with ice fog in Alaska or Siberia.
Hakkapeliitta snow tires help in our nor’easters, try them out.
Two things… pro and con.
First: The amount of energy needed to effectively split water molecules has to be a function of the material used for the electrodes… but it isn’t just the electrode’s material composition (elements used in the alloy) that dictates the reaction rates but also its surface morphology (characteristics such as texture, roughness, etc.). Thus, comparing this new technology to platinum is an apples and oranges comparison. As discussed in the article, these new electrodes are based upon nanotechnology, which results in very large surface areas from small electrodes. This enables large contact surfaces of the water with the electrode, which has to have an effect on efficiency and the amount of voltage/current required to dissociate water molecules.
Second: Universities these days are terrific at advertising the latest and greatest technology development efforts… and most of them are never heard of again. I wish I had a dollar for every battery advance that promised to revolutionize electrical devices/applications. In addition, nanotechnology research is often hyped to the hilt… gotta keep the research revenue flowing.
They have stopped teaching the laws of thermodynamics to scientists, haven’t they?
Unmentionable:
Your rant at August 22, 2014 at 10:02 am is too long for me to quote all of it so I provide this link to it so people can see what I am answering. And my quotations from it in this post are the totality of your post I am answering.
Your post was – as I explained – misdirection. But you say
I gave a clear rebuttal of your arm-waving about “economies of scale” which were misdirection and twaddle. Your economic “points” were plain wrong for the reasons I stated; “i.e.
I notice that your rant made no mention of my reasons I here quote.
Your rant follows that misrepresentation with this inanity
But I said nothing about any of that. On that matter I said in total
Do you really want to dispute that?
And your rant went on with more accusatory nonsense saying
There is no “onus” on me to justify something I did not say but you have imagined.
And you conclude your rant saying
I did not suggest that you did anything “masterfully”. That is another of your imaginings.
The article only reports a novel cheaper catalyst which is trivially important as is explained by Gamecock at August 22, 2014 at 8:56 am where he writers
And that point was supported by michael hart at August 22, 2014 at 9:45 am who wrote
I did not “pretend valid points don’t count”: I pointed out that your points were invalid because they are wrong.
As for “knowledge, or constructive insight”, I was the only person to explain water gas shift and why it makes your economic “points” invalid. That was in my earlier post which is at August 22, 2014 at 8:56 am.
Richard
I did this for fun in my teens back in the sixties. I used graphite electrodes and three AAA cells in series. It worked just dandy. So after fifty years of dedicated work by our best physicists we have managed to eliminate two AAA cells.
However this unfortunately does not affect the amount of energy needed, nor does it eliminate any of the many difficult practical problems of storing and handling hydrogen.
What a state-of-the-art invention – not.
Take any penlight battery, drop it into a glass of tap water and hydrogen and oxygen will bubble from the cathode and anode.
“I don’t know about your state, but here in New Hampshire we don’t worry much about water vapor from IC engines. Perhaps it will be a problem with ice fog in Alaska or Siberia.”
Having grown up in Alaska the problem is idling at stop lights causes the water vapor from the exhaust to freeze on the road and build up at very cold ambient temps. Makes stopping for a red light iffy.