Posted on 03/16/2019 4:44:49 AM PDT by LesbianThespianGymnasticMidget
A research team in Belgium says its prototype panel can produce 250 liters of hydrogen gas per day
Solar panels are multiplying on rooftops and in gardens worldwide as communities clamor for renewable electricity. But engineers in Belgium say the panels could do more than keep the lights on—they could also produce hydrogen gas on site, allowing families to heat their homes without expanding their carbon footprints.
A team at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, or KU Leuven, says it has developed a solar panel that converts sunlight directly into hydrogen using moisture in the air. The prototype takes the water vapor and splits it into hydrogen and oxygen molecules. If it scales successfully, the technology could help address a major challenge facing the hydrogen economy.
Hydrogen, unlike fossil fuels, doesn’t produce greenhouse gas emissions or air pollution when used in fuel-cell-powered vehicles or buildings. Yet nearly all hydrogen produced today is made using an industrial process that involves natural gas, and this ultimately pumps more emissions into the atmosphere.
A small but growing number of facilities are producing “green” hydrogen using electrolysis, which splits water molecules using electricity—ideally from renewable sources such as wind and solar. Other researchers, including the team in Belgium, are developing what’s called direct solar water-splitting technologies. These use chemical and biological components to split water directly on the solar panel, forgoing the need for large, expensive electrolysis plants.
“Finding a way to create hydrogen in some easier or more efficient way is maybe a Holy Grail quest,” says Jim Fenton, who directs the Florida Solar Energy Center at the University of Central Florida.
KU Leuven sits on a grassy campus in Flanders, the Dutch-speaking northern region of Belgium. Earlier this month, professor Johan Martens and his team at the Centre for Surface Chemistry and Catalysis announced their prototype could produce 250 liters of hydrogen per day on average over a full year, which they claim is a world record. A family living in a well-insulated Belgian house could use about 20 of these panels to meet their power and heating needs during an entire year, they predict.
The solar panel measures 1.65 meters long—roughly the height of a kitchen refrigerator, or this reporter—and has a rated power output of about 210 watts. The system can convert 15 percent of the solar energy it receives into hydrogen, the team says. That’s a significant leap from 0.1 percent efficiency they first achieved 10 years ago. (Separately, international researchers last year said they achieved 19 percent efficiency in producing hydrogen from direct solar water splitting.) “The most difficult part is getting the water out of the air.” —Tom Bosserez, KU Leuven
However, Martens’s lab was tight-lipped about its technology. Tom Bosserez, a post-doctoral researcher, declined to disclose any specifics, citing intellectual property concerns. He says only that the lab specializes in “catalysts, membranes, and adsorbents.”
“Using our expertise in this area, we were able to develop a system that is very efficient in taking water from the air and splitting it into hydrogen by using solar energy,” Bosserez wrote in an email. Asked about some of the engineering challenges they faced during a decade of development, he says, “The most difficult part is getting the water out of the air.”
Academic papers offer scattered clues about the technology, though Bosserez says their research “goes beyond what we publish.” In recent years, the engineers have studied the efficacy of a variety of materials, including porous, multi-junction silicon solar cells with “micrometer-scale pore dimensions”; thin-film catalysts made from manganese (III) oxide; and a poly (vinyl alcohol) anion exchange membrane involving a potassium hydroxide solution and nickel-based catalysts.
Martens says generally that his team is using “cheap raw materials” in lieu of precious metals and other expensive components. “We wanted to design something sustainable that is affordable and can be used practically anywhere,” he told VRT, a public broadcasting network in Belgium.
Researchers plan to field test their prototype at a house in the rural town of Oud-Heverlee. Hydrogen would be stored in a small, underground pressure vessel during the summer months, then pumped throughout the house during the winter. If all goes according to plan, Martens says the team could install 20 panels at the house, or build a larger neighborhood system to allow other families to use the “green” hydrogen.
Fenton, of the Florida Solar Energy Center, says it’s far too early to determine whether or when hydrogen-producing solar panels could become economically viable. The technology is still in the very early development stage, and—particularly in the United States—existing heating fuels such as natural gas are relatively cheap. However, as countries work to address climate change, and as more communities install local renewable energy infrastructure like rooftop solar, he sees a potential role for these hydrogen systems.
“If the application works out, it might lend itself very nicely to generating hydrogen that I could store and use for the heating of my house, for cooking, maybe run it in my fuel-cell car,” Fenton says. “It’s these futuristic kinds of opportunities. But it’s still something we need to prepare for.”
For good measure.
I live by a bunch of them. Regularly inspected and maintained.
Same here... We have lived off grid and this could be useful. My curiosity would be based on their own “green” ideology... How much of a carbon footprint is it going to make to produce these cells? More than the long term benefits will be? They keep doing that...
You still need to store & burn the hydrogen safely. Probably doable though.
Or fuel cells for electric generation for when the solar cells aren’t producing enough to meet demand.
If they discover how to split the Beer atom, we will all have free energy.
“When bubble-headed politicians like AOC talk about “renewable energy”, there’s a reason they aren’t specific on what that means. There are none which will meet society’s demands.”
Except that ignorant pols weird the political power to pass laws mandating the impossible. Fleet fuel economy for example.
Hydrogen would be stored in a small, underground pressure vessel during the summer months, then pumped throughout the house during the winter.
Sounds like they intend to burn the hydrogen for heat.
True. I may not have been paying attention during that class. But the products of complete combustion are carbon dioxide, water, and heat... I know the news people BS all the time, but CO2 is a greenhouse gas, so they say.
Especially in the higher altitudes where it gets much cooler at night. I have collected water from the air in the desert using sheet metal panels.
There are Watts, and then there are Watt-hours. Watts are power, and Watt-hours are energy. If the Wikipedia numbers are for a 24 hour day, 150 continuous watts per square meter, that would give you 150*24 = 3,600 Watt-hours ( 3.6 kW-h) per day, per square meter of sunshine energy, if the panels track the sun. You have to also factor the solar cell efficiency, which is roughly your 20% number for commercially realistic cells over their lifetime. The lack of tracking mechanisms will significantly reduce that.
If they don’t specify the pressure of the hydrogen then you can safely assume they are talking about 1ATM, or ambient pressure. We aren’t talking about liquid hydrogen for sure, so storage pressure would probably be closer to natural gas.
At some point you have to realize that their goal is to destroy the economy with the excuse of saving the planet. Then from the ashes they can rebuilt society as a socialist one. AOC as even unwittingly admitted this in part.
I don’t believe the fuel cells vent the CO2. The electricity is produced by the chemical reaction (like any battery!) & the reaction products stay in the fuel cell casing (like any battery!). I could be wrong I know very little about fuel cells.
“Do they really provide a quarter of CA’s energy and if so, how much is it costing Californians?”
California may not actually produce it, but they claim to purchase it from all over.
https://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/infrastructure/a22228/texas-is-drowning-in-wind-energy/
If not otherwise specified, always assume they are talking about uncompressed hydrogen, which would maximize their "gallons of hydrogen" figure. Negligible energy density.
Burning hydrogen produces water vapor but no CO2. Current methods of producing hydrogen also produce CO2, since the energy must come from somewhere. Using solar cells would require only sunlight.
90+% of that comes from the oceans. We MUST drain the oceans, NOW!! Yes, it will cost $75 Trillion, and yes, it is ambitious, but we went to the moon once, and so we can do anything as long as we give government enough money and control.
/AOC-think
Thanks for the article.
It does seem to imply that there is much energy to be gathered from wind power.
I don’t know NEARLY enough about it or its costs or anything else about it to make a comment of my own.
Most here think it’s a waste of money and time and space.
Watt is a unit of instantaneous _power_. In this case 210 watts is likely the power produced at maximum surface solar radiation of about 1000 watts per square meter because that is how solar panels are rated. Your 150 W/m^2 figure of solar radiation is the average over the whole year. To figure the average daily _energy_ hitting earth you have to multiply by 24 to get 3600 watt-hours per square meter. Multiply by 365 to get the total per year: 1,314,000 million watt-hours per square meter. Multiply by the given 15% efficiency and convert to more common units and you get 197 kilowatt-hours per square meter or about $20 of energy.
I wish they had given the surface area of the panel instead of just saying it was 1.65 meters long. The conversion from solar radiance to the 210 watt rated output needs area to see their assumed efficiency.
Also my gut feeling is that the 150 watts per square meter average solar radiation over the entire year is high. At 1000 watt per square meter peak you get a 250 watt average above the clouds (total surface area is 4 times the cross sectional area). Since an overcast day might only be 1% as bright as a sunny day (or approximately zero) the 150 W figure implies that days are 60% sunny.
The difference between energy and power is similar to distance versus speed. We pay for electricity based on energy (analogous to total distance) but solar panel ratings are in power (analogous to speed). You have to multiply by time to see how much total you get.
You’re leaving out the fact you have to “move that energy”!
I’ve seen papers that as much as 40% of all electricity generated is lost (due to material - wire “ohmic loss”) in transmission. The further you move it the more you lose. (Plus the turbines creating it & the motors using it all get hot - energy wasted!). Solar is a niche energy solution and is best to use it in place like for a house in the southwest.
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