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Cheaper Hydrogen Fuel Cell Invented – Enabling Better Green Energy Options
https://scitechdaily.com ^ | April 25, 2022 | By IMPERIAL COLLEGE LONDON

Posted on 04/25/2022 10:03:50 AM PDT by Red Badger

Fuel Cell Being Tested The new fuel cell being tested in the lab. Credit: Imperial College London

Imperial researchers have developed a new hydrogen fuel cell that uses iron instead of rare and costly platinum, enabling greater use of the technology.

Hydrogen fuel cells convert hydrogen to electricity with just water vapor as a byproduct, making them an appealing green alternative for portable power, particularly for vehicles.

However, the expense of one of the primary components has impeded its broad adoption. The fuel cells rely on a catalyst made of platinum, which is expensive and scarce, to assist the reaction that generates power.

Now, a European team led by Imperial College London researchers has created a catalyst using only iron, carbon, and nitrogen – materials that are cheap and readily available – and shown that it can be used to operate a fuel cell at high power. Their results are published today (April 25, 2022) in Nature Catalysis.

Lead researcher Professor Anthony Kucernak, from the Department of Chemistry at Imperial, said: “Currently, around 60% of the cost of a single fuel cell is the platinum for the catalyst. To make fuel cells a real viable alternative to fossil-fuel-powered vehicles, for example, we need to bring that cost down.

“Our cheaper catalyst design should make this a reality, and allow deployment of significantly more renewable energy systems that use hydrogen as fuel, ultimately reducing greenhouse gas emissions and putting the world on a path to net-zero emissions.”

The team’s innovation was to produce a catalyst where all the iron was dispersed as single atoms within an electrically conducting carbon matrix. Single-atom iron has different chemical properties than bulk iron, where all the atoms are clustered together, making it more reactive.

These properties mean the iron boosts the reactions needed in the fuel cell, acting as a good substitute for platinum. In lab tests, the team showed that a single-atom iron catalyst has performance approaching that of platinum-based catalysts in a real fuel cell system.

As well as producing a cheaper catalyst for fuel cells, the method the team developed to create could be adapted for other catalysts for other processes, such as chemical reactions using atmospheric oxygen as a reactant instead of expensive chemical oxidants, and in the treatment of wastewater using air to remove harmful contaminants.

First author Dr. Asad Mehmood, from the Department of Chemistry at Imperial, said: “We have developed a new approach to make a range of ‘single atom’ catalysts that offer an opportunity to allow a range of new chemical and electrochemical processes. Specifically, we used a unique synthetic method, called transmetallation, to avoid forming iron clusters during synthesis. This process should be beneficial to other scientists looking to prepare a similar type of catalyst.”

The team collaborated with UK fuel cell catalyst manufacturer Johnson Matthey to test the catalyst in appropriate systems and hope to scale up their new catalyst so it can be used in commercial fuel cells. In the meantime, they are working to improve the stability of the catalyst, so it matches platinum in durability as well as performance.

Reference: “High loading of single atomic iron sites in Fe–NC oxygen reduction catalysts for proton exchange membrane fuel cells” 25 April 2022, Nature Catalysis.

DOI: 10.1038/s41929-022-00772-9


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Education; History; Science
KEYWORDS: bogus; edison; formenergy; hydrogen; ironairbattery; unicornfarts
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1 posted on 04/25/2022 10:03:50 AM PDT by Red Badger
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To: Red Badger
Whoop-dee-do! Katy bar the door!

*yawn*

2 posted on 04/25/2022 10:05:58 AM PDT by Governor Dinwiddie (LORD, grant thy people grace to withstand the temptations of the world, the flesh, and the devil.)
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To: Red Badger

.


3 posted on 04/25/2022 10:10:30 AM PDT by sauropod ("We put all our politicians in prison as soon as they are elected. Don’t you?" Why? "It saves time.”)
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To: Red Badger

how do you keep it from rusting?


4 posted on 04/25/2022 10:13:08 AM PDT by ImJustAnotherOkie (Let's go Brandon)
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To: Red Badger

Someday, we shall have better “green” energy technologies—when we really need them!

There’s really no need to rush, unless you’re a tyrant trying to crush humanity!! Modern civilization cannot be run on solar, wind, and batteries!!!!


5 posted on 04/25/2022 10:13:15 AM PDT by Honorary Serb (Kosovo is Serbia! Free Srpska! Abolish ICTY!)
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To: Red Badger
"Hydrogen fuel cells convert hydrogen to electricity..."

And then converts to fire.


6 posted on 04/25/2022 10:13:32 AM PDT by Bonemaker (invictus maneo)
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To: Red Badger

Now crooks won’t try to steal your fuel cell just to get the platinum.


7 posted on 04/25/2022 10:13:36 AM PDT by reg45 (Barack 0bama: Gone but not forgiven.)
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To: Governor Dinwiddie

Yep just around the corner. again


8 posted on 04/25/2022 10:15:42 AM PDT by riverrunner
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To: Bonemaker

Kinda my thought too. And, I have some experience with hydrogen.


9 posted on 04/25/2022 10:18:11 AM PDT by rktman (Destroy America from within? Check! WTH? Enlisted USN 1967 to end up with this? 😕)
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To: Red Badger
Hydrogen still needs to be generated from another energy source. It can be separated from natural gas or by electrolysis of water. Either way, it's just a store of transformed energy into a difficult to store form. The clean "burn" of hydrogen is desirable in the isolation of a space vehicle. Solar cells make sense in the same context. The extra expense can be justified in that special use case. It doesn't make a lick of sense for the terrestrial commuter. Diesel/gasoline/liquid propane make the best fuels for vehicles. Great energy density that is rapidly replenished in the process of traveling.
10 posted on 04/25/2022 10:28:26 AM PDT by Myrddin
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To: Myrddin

But da Erf! We gots ta save da Erf!...............


11 posted on 04/25/2022 10:33:25 AM PDT by Red Badger (Homeless veterans camp in the streets while illegal aliens are put up in hotels.....................)
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To: ImJustAnotherOkie

WD40..................


12 posted on 04/25/2022 10:36:03 AM PDT by Red Badger (Homeless veterans camp in the streets while illegal aliens are put up in hotels.....................)
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To: Honorary Serb
Modern civilization cannot be run on solar, wind, and batteries!!!!

Modern civilization, no. Medieval Civilization, yes.............

13 posted on 04/25/2022 10:37:09 AM PDT by Red Badger (Homeless veterans camp in the streets while illegal aliens are put up in hotels.....................)
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To: Red Badger

Good News, surely.


14 posted on 04/25/2022 10:46:56 AM PDT by PubliusMM (RKBA; a matter of fact, not opinion. The Dhimmicraps are ALL Traitors. All of them.)
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To: Red Badger

Ahh...Zirconium


15 posted on 04/25/2022 10:53:18 AM PDT by ImJustAnotherOkie (Let's go Brandon)
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To: Red Badger

Since catalytic converters also use platinum and since they won’t be necessary with a hydrogen fuel cell, then I would think that there would be a cost offset.

Am I missing something here?


16 posted on 04/25/2022 11:08:55 AM PDT by shotgun
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To: Myrddin
I was interested in buying a hydrogen electrolyzer to produce hydrogen for long term storage for my home solar system. But at best they lose 50% of power round trip from power to create gas to later generating electricity from a hydrogen fuel cell.

Meanwhile battery costs keep going down and I get about 95% round trip efficiency from that power storage.

17 posted on 04/25/2022 11:09:10 AM PDT by Tell It Right (1st Thessalonians 5:21 -- Put everything to the test, hold fast to that which is true.)
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To: shotgun

Platinum is used in a myriad of things, precision temperature sensors, jewellry, metallurgy, medicine, etc.................


18 posted on 04/25/2022 11:10:29 AM PDT by Red Badger (Homeless veterans camp in the streets while illegal aliens are put up in hotels.....................)
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To: Tell It Right

Look up Formenergy they are commercializing a Iron air battery that is based on the Edison cell but w/o the nickel side of the cell. Edison cells have cycle lifetimes in the 40,000+ range there are Edison cells from over 100 years ago still in active use. They are targeting $20 kWh in LCOS that’s nothing short of a paradigm shift. Even at 50% efficiency at those costs you could put up panels for 18 cents per watt lose 50% and still be cheaper than the grid wholesale even three times cheaper than retail.Iron cells are not 50% they are 90+% round trip efficient. Making the numbers even better. The batteries are the size of washing machines and industrial strength no fragile lithium cells. Georgia LP just signed up to do the first grid scale test with 1500 megawatts hours of storage that’s equal to one of the South Texas nuclear plants reactor output for an hour. Or a large sized Hydro electric plant. They plan on using it to store solar during the day and let it back to the grid at night. With Edison cell cycle lifetimes as all Iron anode exhibit they should easily get too $20 kWh the expensive part is the nickel cathode. Iron is cheap and easy to recycle as well. It’s one of the most abundant elements on earth second only to aluminum and silicon in the crust. For off grid set up Formenergy which is a spin-off of MIT is going to set the bar for storage. Iron nickel cells are routinely used for off grid applications today they beat lead acid in energy metric including LCOS which is levelized cost of storage the all in over the entire life span cost to storage energy round trip.


19 posted on 04/25/2022 11:26:32 AM PDT by JD_UTDallas ("Veni Vidi Vici" )
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To: Red Badger

Sounds promising and fantastic. Let entrepreneurial and technical research lead the way and not government edicts nor regulations. Develop away but leftards need to stop vilifying fossil fuels which are very necessary for current production of systems that fuel the economy. Dont destroy what currently is working in the name of ‘progress’.


20 posted on 04/25/2022 11:29:01 AM PDT by tflabo (Truth or tyranny )
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