Hydrogen Produced at the Pump?
Nancy Ordman | April 28, 2017
New PEC cell (bottom) developed at Technion. Credit: Technion
New technology developed at the Technion uses solar power to separate hydrogen and oxygen in water. One
potential application is producing hydrogen at the point of sale, such as a gas station where hydrogen-powered electric cars stop to fill up.
Hydrogen as a fuel offers several advantages over other energy sources, including the element’s abundance.
Currently most hydrogen comes from natural gas, but the production process releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Splitting water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen by electrolysis looks feasible. The process uses electricity; electricity production is expensive and causes pollution.
Many researchers are developing photoelectrochemical (PEC) cells that split water molecules directly without using an external power source. The Technion research team addressed the limitations of this method — separate storage for hydrogen and oxygen, collecting the gases from multiple cells, and transporting hydrogen — by developing a new kind of PEC technology.
The new method produces oxygen and hydrogen at different sites. Oxygen is produced exclusively at a large solar farm. Hydrogen is produced elsewhere, at the point of use or purchase. This is accomplished by replacing the electrode in the conventional PEC with a photo- anode. The cells are completely separated. The prototype uses inexpensive nickel hydroxide for electrodes, connected by a metal wire.
Economists at Evonik Creavis GmbH and the Institute of Solar Research at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) calculated that the new technology could offer be appreciable savings over conventional production methods.
Lead researcher Avigail Landman, a graduate student in the Nancy & Stephen Grand Technion Energy Program, won first place in the energy category at the University of Queensland’s Three Minute Thesis competition, held in October 2016.
Are the intermediate NI ''electrodes'' physically-chemicall
It will never go public unless the metal oxide (and other electrodes) are physically and chemically stable under the conditions of service. There might be service pre-requisites to be also managed, such as a requirement for purified water to be added to the cells, and also, for a stable electrolyte in solution.
The water could not be too much on the acidic side, or the nickel oxide/nickel hydroxide coating of the electrodes would perhaps dissolve.
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