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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who took the time to read the paper? they built the catalyst on the sides of carbon nano tubes! that process is highly energy & money intensive… and, oh my heck… the osha regs and hoops to jump through! (nasty chemicals under extreme temp & press) and, oh yes… carbon nanotubes are delicate good science but impractical and b.s. reporting
Or… you can just use that energy to pump water up the hill and store it in a dam and let the water flow down through a hydroelectric power plant to generate energy. Doable without the need of engineering breakthroughs. So simple it sounds silly.
The problem, though, is how much energy is lost in the process. It is the same problem any energy conversion has, including the one proposed in the article under discussion.
old man two sticks says:
August 22, 2014 at 2:52 pm
“who took the time to read the paper? they built the catalyst on the sides of carbon nano tubes! that process is highly energy & money intensive”
Yes, but optimizing the production process is more easily doable than increasing the energy density of hydrogen (or any other energy) storage for cars. I wouldn’t count that as a principal obstacle. After Mosher sang high praises on engineers, let’s praise the MBA’s as well, because they’re the ones that force the engineers to actually do the optimizations. Because engineers couldn’t care less about costs if left to their own devices. 😉
Hindenburg – perfect.
bit chilly says August 22, 2014 at 2:08 pm…
Thanks.
It seems I’m not alone in spotting the potential in using intermittent energy generation to split water and so smooth the energy release.
And improving the economics is a good thing.
In contrast.
old man two sticks says at August 22, 2014 at 2:52 pm…
That it isn’t a finished product.
True (yet, thinks I).
But progress is progress.
I’m no windpower evangelist. Even so, even I see this as a possible means of saving the UK’s energy policy from abject failure.
urederra
High capital cost too (favouring large scale), and only makes sense if you have a local geography that works and significant surplus energy to play with. Tokyo Electric Power has done some. But electricity to hydrogen doesn’t compete in this market, as you note, but there are others – and buffering wind power in a pipeline could be one. See my comment above.
old man two sticks
Enough going on with C-nanotubes to potentially see higher volume, lower cost solutions to production and functionalisation.
If water is used then won’t we see a lowering of sea water levels? Surely another benefit for future generations.
Hydrogen production as we need it is the way to go. No storage tank needed http://m.youtube.com/results?q=making%20hydrogen&sm=3
“Hydrogen is an ideal fuel for powering vehicles”
No it isn’t.
Stop making stuff up.
To to make use of this, you’d have to use it to transform a form of energy that’s extremely hard to store into a form of energy that’s only very hard to store.
It is, I suppose, interesting that they’ve lowered the voltage, but that doesn’t mean they’ve lowered the power consumed.
Hell_Is_Like_Newark says:
August 22, 2014 at 1:03 pm
The late Ben Rich of Lockheed wrote a book entitled “The Skunk Works” detailing his years there and the history of Lockheed’s R&D department. One chapter deals with Lockheed foray into using hydrogen as a fuel.
The problems faced went way beyond just making H2 (i.e. hydrogen molecules work their way into steel, causing it to become brittle). The issues made the project non-viable. Lockheed actually gave the remainder of the development money BACK to the government.
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Is it wrong to say I have nothing to add, other than the fact I love your moniker.
It makes me smile every time I see it 🙂
I work in a zinc plating plant. Nearly once a day, maybe more often, there will be a very loud bang as Hydrogen that had been trapped under foam on top of the plating tank is ignited. Very good for scaring the crap out of newbies, but harmless. Has got to the point where I don’t even flinch when it happens.
Small tank by the way. Would not want to be around a really big one if this were to happen, big tanks, and we have some in other applications, are less likely to have a foam blanket form over the entire surface.
Almost cold fusion…..
“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.”
Before anyone gets too excited about producing hydrogen by electrolysis, remember that for ever pound of hydrogen, you’ll get eight pounds of oxygen. Oxygen is highly corrosive, and at concentrations higher than normal air, it can make many unusual things combustible.
Once dispersed in the atmosphere, it shouldn’t be a problem, but plans for electrolysis should include plans for dispersing the oxygen.
“a fossil fuel that contributes to global warming”
I wish people would stop spouting this nonsense. I actually wish it was true because then the nice climate optimum we have been experiencing would continue, but it isn’t and things are not going to be as nice over the coming decades.
Did anyone mention that nickel is about $8/lb vs. $1400 and $900/oz for platinum and palladium, respectively?
Anyway, I like tritium as a more “ideal fuel” of the future.
@Gamecock 8/22 4:47 pm
remember that for ever pound of hydrogen, you’ll get eight pounds of oxygen.
A good point. Releasing it to the atmosphere is no problem. However, to run a fuel cell, you desire 100% oxygen as well as the hydrogen. So you need to store and transfer pure oxygen as well as hydrogen under pressure. In the scheme of things, not a big issue, but it shouldn’t escape notice, either.
mosher,
I usually expect more from you, you must be in love with Stanford.
Nothing here changes the laws of physics, hydrogen is simply an alternate energy storage mechanism. Where does the energy come from, an AAA battery? How far do you think that will get you.
Sure, perhaps this is a more efficient technique to convert and store energy, but more efficient still doesn’t provide energy. That still has to come from somewhere.
MikeEE
PiperPaul says:
August 22, 2014 at 10:28 am
A 350 block with a 400 crank gives you a 383 Chevy
350 + 400 = 383?
What is this, climate science math?
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No , it’s basic mechanics
Chev 350 has a 4″ bore and a 3.48″ stroke,
Chev 400 has a 4.125″ bore and a 3.75″ stroke
During the stroker conversion the 350 block is overbored giving it a 4.03″ bore combined with the 3.75″ stroke of the 400 crank , thus 383 c.i. displacement .
Don’t forget the electrolysis unit explosion that destroyed Pristina’s power plant in June.http://www.powerengineeringint.com/articles/2014/06/explosion-at-kosovo-coal-fired-power-plant-kills-three.html
British Columbia has some 20 hydrogen powered fuel cell busses we would like to sell. Ballard Power Systems which has had a lot of government support for decades, does seem to have attracted interest beyond demo projects. Would be nice to see some green at the end of the tunnel.
http://www.biv.com/article/20131210/BIV0118/312109897/-1/biv/whistler-hydrogen-bus-pilot-to-be-parked-in-march
Hydrogen is the smallest molecule and very difficult to contain as Zeppelin found out. Fuel generation and handling may be harder than the power device part.
There is one sure fired way of establishing that this claim is nonsense.
Anyone who actually found such a method/device would not be publicising it, they would be filing the patent.
The advantage to this is that you can produce the H in remote areas via solar wind or what ever and then it can be transferred to where it can be used. Avoiding the problems of get electricity from these remote areas.
Transportation is not that large a problem and fuel tanks on vehicles is also not a huge problem, they use a tank with a honeycomb type structure on the inside which makes it as safe as gas in a tank.
That being said the changes in infrastructure and the cost to produce will still be higher then gas and NG. There is no practice mechanism to make the conversion economically viable. Nuclear power has huge advantages over H and the cost is much less and The infastructure is already there.
Maybe as a specialty fuel H makes sense but only maybe.
The history of the zeppelin engineering was very interesting- there went my cheap lighter than air fantasy…
“The “Hindenburg complex” is a non-problem however. A study years ago showed that the Hindenburg fire was caused by the coating on the fabric skin of the craft” – Old Engineer
Powdered aluminium, to be precise. Powdered Al is also used in thermite. Scary stuff, that.
Still, if I had a dollar for every “Hindenberg!” comment…
I’m not knowledgable about thermodynamics and stuff like that, but it seems that some people take the easy route and criticise the report instead of trying to find ways to progress.
I’ve seen too many comments about the AAA cell. It’s the voltage, people!
We humans easily rationalise the familiar while we disparage what is unfamiliar. Why is cannabis illegal but alcohol legal? It’s arbitrary.
Somebody commented about metal matrices. I was not aware that they had a part to play in energy production. The first type of metal matrix I heard about was aluminium in silicon carbide. That was to be used for landing gear parts.
Wait a second. In my youth, like so many of my generation, I used to conduct the “electrolysis” experiment, using mildly salted water in a bowl at room temperature, and using a flashlight battery. I only used coated copper wires that had been stripped at the ends, the two “connections” of which were sitting in the liquid, with the exposed copper portion of the cathode wire formed into a short coil, having been wrapped around a pencil. That wire end was turned up under an inverted test tube filled with that saline liquid. The hydrogen bubbled off that copper cathode wire and gradually collected in the test tube as the liquid level dropped therein. And when enough hydrogen had been collected in the tube, I’d gleefully raise it (upside down) and ignite it with a match to achieve the anticipated “pop” and familiar blue flash. Now, it wasn’t a quick process, but it certainly happened at a very low voltage. Maybe this alloy (of iron and nickel) is far more efficient in splitting the water molecules and it does so quickly. But the article seems a bit misleading in claiming that a voltage that low could not previously cause electrolysis.
If the “production” of hydrogen gas is very much quicker using this nickel/iron alloy, it could assist in resolving what has been a very serious problem in the use of stored hydrogen gas for operating fuel cells — the serious difficulties involved in storing a sufficient amount of the gas to operate a fuel cell for a long enough period of time to make it’s use practical. Hydrogen simply does not “liquify” when compressed at normal temperatures, in the way (for example), that propane does.
And, a small portion of the hydrogen tends to “dissolve” in the metal in any iron-based (steel) tank you try to keep it in, which tends to render such metal tanks brittle rather quickly. A fuel cell using stored hydrogen that is generating electricity for an electric motor for a motor vehicle is theoretically far more efficient than any engine. But because of the “compression” problems, not enough hydrogen can possibly be stored “on board” to give such a vehicle anything like a practical or useful range.
Hydrogen gas also dissolves rather readily in other metals, including in the metal lead and perhaps there may be a way to make a lead-based mesh (like a steel wool) to stuff inside a compression tank, which could then allow much more hydrogen to be stored therein under compression, than in an empty tank! As the pressure was released during use, the hydrogen would come out of dissolution from within the lead mesh.