Posted on 09/14/2021 7:28:11 AM PDT by Red Badger
Researchers at the University of Central Florida have designed for the first time a nanoscale material that can efficiently split seawater into oxygen and a clean energy fuel — hydrogen.
The material offers the high performance and stability needed for industrial-scale electrolysis, which could produce a clean energy fuel from seawater.
Hydrogen fuel derived from the sea could be an abundant and sustainable alternative to fossil fuels, but the potential power source has been limited by technical challenges, including how to practically harvest it.
Researchers at the University of Central Florida have designed for the first time a nanoscale material that can efficiently split seawater into oxygen and a clean energy fuel — hydrogen. The process of splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen is known as electrolysis and effectively doing it has been a challenge until now.
The stable, and long-lasting nanoscale material to catalyze the reaction, which the UCF team developed, is explained this month in the journal Advanced Materials.
“This development will open a new window for efficiently producing clean hydrogen fuel from seawater,” says Yang Yang, an associate professor in UCF’s NanoScience Technology Center and study co-author.
Hydrogen is a form of renewable energy that—if made cheaper and easier to produce—can have a major role in combating climate change, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.
Hydrogen could be converted into electricity to use in fuel cell technology that generates water as product and makes an overall sustainable energy cycle, Yang says.
How It Works The researchers developed a thin-film material with nanostructures on the surface made of nickel selenide with added, or “doped,” iron and phosphor. This combination offers the high performance and stability that are needed for industrial-scale electrolysis but that has been difficult to achieve because of issues, such as competing reactions, within the system that threaten efficiency.
The new material balances the competing reactions in a way that is low-cost and high-performance, Yang says.
Using their design, the researchers achieved high efficiency and long-term stability for more than 200 hours.
“The seawater electrolysis performance achieved by the dual-doped film far surpasses those of the most recently reported, state-of-the-art electrolysis catalysts and meets the demanding requirements needed for practical application in the industries,” Yang says.
The researcher says the team will work to continue to improve the electrical efficiency of the materials they’ve developed. They are also looking for opportunities and funding to accelerate and help commercialize the work.
Reference: “Dual-Doping and Synergism toward High-Performance Seawater Electrolysis” by Jinfa Chang, Guanzhi Wang, Zhenzhong Yang, Boyang Li, Qi Wang, Ruslan Kuliiev, Nina Orlovskaya, Meng Gu, Yingge Du, Guofeng Wang and Yang Yang, 8 July 2021, Advanced Materials. DOI: 10.1002/adma.202101425
More About The Team
Co-authors included Jinfa Chang, a postdoctoral scholar, and Guanzhi Wang, a doctoral student in materials science engineering, both with UCF’s NanoScience Technology Center; and Ruslan Kuliiev ’20MS, a graduate of UCF’s Master’s in Aerospace Engineering program, and Nina Orlovskaya, an associate professor with UCF’s Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, and Renewable Energy and Chemical Transformation Cluster.
Yang holds joint appointments in UCF’s NanoScience Technology Center and the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, which is part of the university’s College of Engineering and Computer Science. He is a member of UCF’s Renewable Energy and Chemical Transformation (REACT) Cluster. He also holds a secondary joint-appointment in UCF’s Department of Chemistry. Before joining UCF in 2015, he was a postdoctoral fellow at Rice University and an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg in Germany. He received his doctorate in materials science from Tsinghua University in China.
Then, add to this the myriad of problems that using hydrogen creates:
Heavy and large storage tanks
Embrittlement of metal distribution pipes
Low energy density
Inability to liquify
Leakage due to small molecular size
Very high storage pressures
.
.
.
🐙🐌🍻. Making me hungry now dang it.
I’m 110% sure you are correct
However, this sounds like a win-win for the eco-whack jobs. Clean energy and by using seawater it will reduce the rise of the oceans which is a byproduct of AGW. /s
Butt, butt, butt zero carbon. Well except making EVERYTHING to make EVERY component. Other than that, yeah.
Well, all of that is true!
ALL THEY NEED TO DO IS ADD SOME CARBON ATOMS TO THE HYDROGEN ATOMS, HOPEFULLY IN LONG CHAINS AND RINGS, AND THOSE PROBLEMS WILL BE SOLVED!...............
You mean there really is no such thing as a free lunch? drat.
Agreed. Plus, you will have the environ-weenies and the fossil fuel industry fighting such tech. Then you have the distribution system that would need the gas companies to convert, and who owns the existing pipelines? Plus, are hydrogen fuel cells perfected and economical for vehicles? Real question.
Also, as pointed out above, desalination/filtering plants would have to be built.
How long before the Chicoms steal this technology?
I think the best way for a hydrogen economy is to split seawater to hydrogen and oxygen, but use genetically-engineered kelp plants to create gaseous nodules of hydrogen for harvesting. Use sunlight/photosynthesis.
Last sentence:
He received his doctorate in materials science from Tsinghua University in China.
I saw how the eco-wack jobs in Maine some 20 years or so ago.
They pushed hard for wind power. And anyone who opposed wind projects were reactionaries under the thumb of the fossil fuel industry.
So, wind mills started to be built-some were fairly large projects funded with private investment funds. And yes you guessed it; the eco-wack jobs started to complain about these projects. It is a no-win position with these leftists.
I also wonder why hydrogen would be better than natural gas to your stove and other applications. I also asked above, are hydrogen fuel cells for vehicles safe and economical? And what about petroleum by-products that are used in countless every day products. You probably have dozens of products in your own home. Think plastic to start.
No, they’ll capture the O2. Hospitals need it for all the ventilators for Covid-x patients.
And of course they have competition for that resource from Elon Musk who needs LOX to keep the rockets flying.
Read the names.... While the rest of the world is producing STEM geniuses the dumbed down brainwashed clowns with “American” names are going to college to become environmental lawyers and gender queer studies.
You're certainly correct that seawater has a myriad of mineral salts in it but AFAIK magnesium metal and sodium chloride salt via evaporation are about the only inorganics commercially obtained from seawater. Other inorganics are not economically recoverable, again AFAIK. I've been away from the state of the art in this for quite a time.
Trivia! The gargantuan Dow Chemical chemical complex in Freeport, TX started up in 1940. Not one but two duplicate complexes were built in 18 months including sea walls and a 5-mile barge canal to Plant B. It had the same priorities for funding and resources as the Manhattan Project, which led to the nuclear bomb. Plant A is on the coast adjacent to the harbor and Plant B is about 5 miles inland. Plant B was insurance as it was out of range of deck guns on WWII German submarines. Primary products were magnesium, chlorine, sodium hydroxide and epoxy. Magnesium for flares and incendiaries, chlorine and caustic for explosives and epoxy for Bakelite (ex. aircraft dash panels).
I just retired from teaching for over 30 years at the Maritime College in Maine. We graduate engineers with plenty of hands-on practical training. Also, we graduate students who major in international business and logistics, with an emphasis on logistics and supply chain management. The students in our hands-on programs are usually employed before they graduate or within 30 days after.
“Then there is the problem with the hydrogen fuel cells in vehicles. I’m not sure if that has been perfected as yet.”
An on-demand system would nix the fuel cell.
How much power does it take to accomplish the split? Will the cost be prohibitive?
Ok, from what I’m reading they built a better electrolysis plate. However, the energy deficit will be the larger problem. You have to input energy to run electrolysis. Where’s that energy come from?
That is what the environ-weenies and politicians never realize or ignore.
E-Cat......................
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