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Boffins show less platinum may be needed for long-lived power sourceAdding caffeine can enhance the efficiency of fuel cells, reducing the need for platinum in electrodes and significantly reducing the cost of making them, according to researchers in Japan. Fuel cells are attracting interest as an alternative energy storage technology in a variety of applications, from electric vehicles to powering datacenters, yet they can be costly as they use expensive material. Researchers at the Graduate School of Engineering at Chiba University, Japan, claim to have discovered that adding caffeine can boost their efficiency, reducing the amount of platinum required and...

A Toyota Project Portal hydrogen fuel cell electric semi-truck is shown during an event in San Francisco, Calif., on Sept. 13, 2018. (Stephen Lam/Reuters) Researchers have come up with a new system that turns seawater into hydrogen fuel—a development that could aid in the proliferation of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. The new method extracts hydrogen from the ocean by funneling seawater through a double membrane system, using electricity. The design was successful in generating hydrogen gas without the accompaniment of large quantities of harmful byproducts. Vehicles with hydrogen fuel cells are fed with compressed hydrogen gas. The fuel cells do...

... “For me, playing to win also means doing things differently. Doing things that others may question, but that we believe will put us in the winner’s circle the longest,” he said Wednesday during Toyota’s annual dealer meeting in Las Vegas, which, by the way, was called “Playing to Win.” Toyoda, who described Toyota as a large department store, said the company’s goal “remains the same, pleasing the widest possible range of customers with the widest possible range of powertrains.” Those powertrains will include hybrids and plug-in hybrids like the Prius, hydrogen fuel cell vehicles like the Mirai and 15...

Curcumin and gold nanoparticles have been combined to create an electrode that requires 100 times less energy to convert ethanol into electricity. Curcumin - (Image: Paitoon at AdobeStock) This is the claim of researchers at the Clemson Nanomaterials Institute (CNI), South Carolina and their collaborators from the Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning (SSSIHL) in India. While the research team need to do more testing, the discovery could eventually lead to hydrogen being replaced as a fuel cell feedstock. “Of all the catalysts for alcohol oxidation in alkaline medium, the one we prepared is the best so far,” said...

A new kind of fuel cell that can turn urine into electricity could revolutionize the way we produce bioenergy, particularly in developing countries. The research, published in Electrochimica Acta, describes a new design of microbial fuel cell that's smaller, cheaper and more powerful than traditional ones. The world's supply of fossil fuels is being depleted, and there is increasing pressure to develop new renewable sources of energy. Bioenergy is one such source, and microbial fuel cells can produce it. In their study, researchers from University of Bath, Queen Mary University of London and the Bristol Robotics Laboratory describe a new...

The gas age is good news Published on Saturday, March 16, 2013, updated Saturday, March 16, 2013 Methane hydrate joins shale gas and deep sea gas I have the following article in the Times on 15 March:   Move over shale gas, here comes methane hydrate. (Perhaps.) On Tuesday the Japanese government’s drilling ship Chikyu started flaring off gas from a hole drilled into a solid deposit of methane and ice, 300 metres beneath the seabed under 1000 metres of water, 30 miles off the Japanese coast.   The real significance of this gas flare probably lies decades in...

Source: Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Date: 2003-02-26 Fossil Records Show Methane In Seafloor Sediments Released During Periods Of Rapid Climate Warming Scientists have found new evidence indicating that during periods of rapid climate warming methane gas has been released periodically from the seafloor in intense eruptions. In a study published in the current issue of the journal Science, Kai-Uwe Hinrichs and colleagues Laura Hmelo and Sean Sylva of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) provide a direct link between methane reservoirs in coastal marine sediments and the global carbon cycle, an indicator of global warming and cooling. Molecular fossils from...

University of Delaware researchers have broken new ground that could bring more environmentally friendly fuel cells closer to commercialization. Credit: Graphic illustration by Jeffrey C. Chase ========================================================================= University of Delaware (UD) engineers have demonstrated a way to effectively capture 99% of carbon dioxide from air using a novel electrochemical system powered by hydrogen. It is a significant advance for carbon dioxide capture and could bring more environmentally friendly fuel cells closer to market. The research team, led by UD Professor Yushan Yan, reported their method in Nature Energy on Thursday, February 3. Game-changing tech for fuel cell efficiency Fuel cells...

In research out of the University of Manchester in the UK led by Nobel Laureate Andre Geim, it has been shown that the one-atom-thick materials graphene and hexagonal boron nitride (hBN), once thought to be impermeable, allow protons to pass through them. The result, the Manchester researchers believe, will be more efficient fuel cells and the simplification of the heretofore difficult process of separating hydrogen gas for use as fuel in fuel cells. This latest development alters the understanding of one of the key properties of graphene: that it is impermeable to all gases and liquids. Even an atom as...

A weak spot found in otherwise ultra-strong graphene -- the thinnest, strongest and least permeable material known to science -- could in fact be a boon and could lead to a revolution in fuel cell technology, researchers say. Research at Britain's Manchester University led by Andre Geim -- who shared a Nobel Prize for the discovery of graphene -- has shown that the material is not quite as impermeable as previously though and will, in fact, allow protons to easily pass through it. This quality could be utilized in the future to create graphene membranes that could "sieve" hydrogen gas...

The platinum nanoframes have 22 times the sepcific catalytic activity of standard electrodes © Science/AAASUS scientists have created an exceptional fuel cell catalyst that contains far less platinum – conventional catalysts need 36 times more platinum to hit the same levels of activity. The manufacturing process, which was discovered by accident, uses simple techniques that the researchers believe can be easily scaled-up. The work could help to make fuel cells economically viable for applications such as cars as the precious metal makes up much of the cost of the cell.Fuel cells react hydrogen with oxygen to produce water, using the...

The Energy Department has $9 million more taxpayer dollars to spend on projects that may make a very expensive car less expensive and more acceptable to consumers. The latest round of funding is intended to accelerate the development of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, backup power systems, and hydrogen refueling stations. … Ironically, the Energy Department credits cheaper fossil fuel with reducing the cost of producing hydrogen fuel cells: “Recent development of the United States’ tremendous shale gas resources has not only helped directly cut electricity and transportation costs for consumers and businesses, but is also helping to reduce the costs...

  (Source: forbes.com) This could lead to more efficient microbial fuel cells Scientists have found that clean electricity can be derived from bacteria thanks to an electron transfer method similar to that found in cells.  The research was conducted by scientists from the University of East Anglia and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. Dr. Tom Clarke from the University of East Anglia led the study.  The research team used a synthetic version of Shewanella oneidensis, which is a member of a marine bacteria family. Proteins on the surface of this kind of bacteria are capable of generating an electric current just by...

Army looks for ways to use fuel cells with non-petroleum sources The United States Army has started the development and application of hydrogen fuel-cell technology to their vehicles. The first vehicle to receive this technology will be the workhorse M1 Abrams battle tank. This type of tank requires vast amounts of onboard computing power for sensors, computing equipment, battle command technology and other electronic equipment, so using fuel cell technology would be able to provide greater electrical power than the current setup, which is a diesel engine/alternator arrangement.  In addition, the use of a fuel cell would make the tank's motor run in...

Crab shells provide a cheap and convenient template to make high performance carbon electrodes for energy storage and conversion, say Chinese scientists. Carbon materials have many potential applications, including as electrodes in supercapacitors and fuel cells. The pore structure is known to affect their physicochemical properties and is normally controlled by using a porous hard template such as zeolite or silica. But the process usually involves using hydrofluoric acid to remove the templates, which can be complex and costly. A research group from Fudan University, led by Yong-Yao Xia, has demonstrated that crab shell has a well aligned porous structure at the microscopic level. Exploiting this...

Fuel cells deserved to hit the headlines this week, but not the way that it played out. The big splash came thanks to CBS News' 60 MINUTES and heavy hyping of a stationary fuel cell developer emerging from stealth-mode development. More surprising, and of real significance, was a projection yesterday by Pike Research that fuel cell-equipped vehicles will go commercial in just 4 years. The problem with Bloom Energy's Bloom Box stationary fuel cell is that, despite 60 MINUTES' assertion that it might be the holy grail to free Americans shackled to a coal-fired grid, the company has yet to...

In the boardroom at Bloom Energy, a single picture hangs on the wall: a satellite image of the world at night. Clusters of bright lights mark the industrial centers, and thin white lines trace connecting passageways such as the U.S. Interstate System and the Trans-Siberian Railroad. In between, huge swaths lie in shadow. Standing almost reverently before the image, K. R. Sridhar, the CEO of Bloom, points to the dark areas—places where electricity isn’t accessible or reliable. “This is my motivation for everything,” he says. To improve the lot of the more than 2 billion people living in those dark...

Chinese scientists have developed membranes that could improve direct methanol fuel cells (DMFCs). DMFCs oxidise methanol to produce small amounts of electricity over long periods, making them ideal as portable power supplies. A vital component of DMFCs is the membrane, which separates the two reactions of the cell while allowing protons to move between them. But sometimes unreacted methanol can also pass through the membrane, which reduces the fuel efficiency and performance. 'This methanol cross-over is an Achilles' heel for the implementation of the DMFC,' says Yohannes Kiros, an expert in fuel cells and energy at the Royal Institute of Technology,...

WASHINGTON — Cars powered by hydrogen fuel cells, once hailed by President George W. Bush as a pollution-free solution for reducing the nation’s dependence on foreign oil, will not be practical over the next 10 to 20 years, the energy secretary said Thursday, and the government will cut off funds for the vehicles’ development. Developing those cells and coming up with a way to transport the hydrogen is a big challenge, Energy Secretary Steven Chu said in releasing energy-related details of the administration’s budget for the year beginning Oct. 1. Dr. Chu said the government preferred to focus on projects...

New studies with different fuel cell catalysts show promising results As the automotive industry is betting that hydrogen can become the fuel of the future, technology is taking steps to bring that hope closer to reality. Three papers being published by the journal Science promise to fill some of the most significant gaps in what could someday be an environmentally friendly cycle of hydrogen production and consumption. --snip-- Platinum is also commonly used on the consumption side, in the fuel cells that turn hydrogen back into water and produce electric currents. In Science‘s August 1 issue, researchers at Monash University...