A “Giant Leap” For Clean Energy: Hydrogen Production Breakthrough from MIT
by Matthew McDermott, Brooklyn, NY on 07.31.08
graphic of hydrogen bonds (in green) between oxygen (red) and hydrogen (white): Focus
One problem with wind and solar power is that for either to be able to provide a round-the-clock source of reliable power, you need some sort of back up power source. Or you need to have some way of storing the excess energy produced during the day for use at night or when the wind isn’t blowing. Well, though it’s a long way from being commercially deployed, a new development by MIT chemist Daniel Nocera may bring the holy grail of renewable energy storage a bit closer to hand.
Cobalt-Phosphorus Catalyst Used to Split Water at Room Temperature
The Guardian is reporting that Nocera has developed a catalyst from cobalt and phosphorus which can be used to split water at room temperature. Nocera, “I’m using cheap, Earth-abundant materials that you can mass-manufacture. As long as you can charge the surface, you can create the catalyst and it doesn’t get any cheaper than that.”
Implications for Fuel Cells and Renewable Energy
Nocera describes the implications of his research on renewable energy:
You could imagine, during the day you have a photovoltaic cell, you take some that electricity and use it in your house, then take the other part of that electricity for my catalyst, feed the catalyst water and you get hydrogen and oxygen.
These could then be recombined in a fuel cell later in the day,
So I’ve made your house a gas station and a power station. It’s all enabled because we can use light plus water to make a chemical fuel, which is hydrogen and oxygen.
“A Major Discovery”
Describing Nocera’s work, James Barber of Imperial College London, and a leading researcher on artificial photosynthesis described this work as a “giant leap” for clean energy. He added,
This is a major discovery with enormous implications for the future prosperity of humankind. The importance of [this] discovery cannot be overstated since it opens up the door for developing new technologies for energy production thus reducing our dependence for fossil fuels and addressing the global climate change problem.
You can listen to a Science magazine podcast interview with Daniel Nocera for a bit more information on this work.
via :: The Guardian
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So many great ideas floating around these days. Lets hope at least one of them are actually viable soon.
Its on like its never been.
What good news! It's great that this is happening now when the business of fossil fuels is so sketchy. It gives us a lot to look forward to.
This article is a little light on some specifics. Particularly, what is the energy savings, if any, of this technology versus separation of water by hydrolysis? The basic idea of using your excess energy to make hydrogen/oxygen from water is a good idea to make solar power more portable, but certainly is not new here. Any chance of some followup reporting?
Distributed renewable energy grids are an excellent method for power utilization and storage.
I'll try to find links to a University led project that utilized distributed wind, solar, closed loop hydro, and bio-gas turbines ( I think they also included flywheels for short term use /storage but I might be remembering that incorrectly)
All of these different sources reported to a central system that then managed these renewable installations overall output to the consumer grid.
When the wind and solar plants where producing extra power( ie more than consumer demand) the power was redirected to the closed loop hydro installations which pumped water from the lower reservoirs to the upper reservoirs.
When there wasn't enough wind and solar power then the closed loop hydro installations dumped water from the upper reservoirs through hydro stations to the lower reservoirs.
I believe the bio-gas turbines only ever came online as last ditch power generation.
Hydrogen is not the holy grail of renewable energy storage -- though it is very useful for environmental vehicle power.
I'm no expert, but are you sure that picture's labeled correctly? I would guess that the red atoms are oxygen, while the smaller white atoms are hydrogen (atomic #1). I'm guessing these are water molecules (H2O), so the 2 white atoms (H2) are attached to the 1 red atom (O). (and then the green bonds are correctly labeled as hydrogen bonds btwn molecules.
Okay, first a question. Standard electrolysis splits water at room temperature too, so how is this different? The article sows confusion by not comparing the efficiency of the old technique to this new one. How is this one better?
Second, an observation. I doubt that this will be used in people's homes, though it sounds like it could be scaled to do so. Fuel cells are built from very expensive and rare materials which defy mass production. I imagine stored hydrogen would be used in combined cycle turbines. First, hydrogen is a tiny molecule that requires special handling, which could be more easily done at a central location. Second, combined cycle turbines are highly efficient. Current ones using natural gas (which is almost all hydrogen anyway) get efficiencies over 85%. I imagine that if this pans out, the hydrogen will be created and stored centrally, then burned when as needed on cloudy or windless days, or at night.
@TrollPatrol
I read that article too. I think it was over at the oil drum, and described how Germany was going to create a complete fossil fuel free electric grid. I agree that closed loop hydro is a great clean way of "storing" electricity, but it's somewhat limited by terrain. What would they do in Kansas, for instance?
I'm less sure that hydrogen will be used in vehicles anytime soon. Being a small molecule, it's very difficult to handle. Even with the best technology the gas escapes from the tank in four days. Using it in fuel cells is a dicey proposition, since fuel cells rely on expensive and rare materials, so don't scale well. You could burn it in an ICE, but that's pretty inefficient, since current ICE's after 100 years of improvements, are still on 20-30% efficient.
I think this will be used for central electric production. In the future, cars will be an expensive luxury, or very short range. I expect trains, streetcars and electric buses to make a comeback.
"long way from being commercially deployed"
Although I do love reading about all of the new cleantech that's going to "save us", when is it actually going to happen?
Here in NE I have an oil furnace that uses B20 Bio Home Heating Oil, it's 25 years old.
It needs replacing but I don't have 25K for the Micro-Chp system that I would like so I have to go with the more economical 8K oil furnace that is configured to eventually integrate with hot water solar (another 8K).
Holy Grail? I'll believe it when I can by it at home depot for under 1K.
In the meantime, I'm going to be paying 675.00 a month for bio-oil this coming heating season.
This could be a breakthrough but some oif us commenters seem doubtful. If you'd like more info it's available at http://web.mit.edu/chemistry/dgn/www/
JSDreyer, the point here is that this group is working to eliminate expensive catalysts from the hydrogen production process; there is no chemical reason why more research cannot eliminate the expensive components from fuel cells. Yes, we all know that right now fuel cells are expensive and use rare materials; that is why they are not in common use. But that is no reason to believe that we won't learn to build better fuel cells with common materials.
Also, a catalyst cannot change the amount of energy required to perform a reaction. It can lower the temperature at which a reaction occurs given the same input of energy, however. What is interesting here is not that they have a room-temperature catalyst for hydrolysis, but that it is made with common and relatively cheap materials. Thus, it is more likely that this could be mass-produced or used on an industrial scale.
You have some good ideas, TrollPatrol. Certainly a mix of intermittent sources reduces overall intermittency, and thus overall need for energy storage. And I, too, think biogas would make good peaking plants. Organic matter, whether solid, liquid, or gas, especially from waste products, can be easily stored and used when needed to provide extra power.
Pumped water energy storage does work well, but it has the problem all dams have: local environmental damage. Also, if you try to store your energy (water in a reservoir) too long, the water evaporates away. I think that for energy storage at times of excess production, hydrogen (or any other chemical fuel) would be a better choice than a reservoir system using water. My main reasoning there is transportation. As time goes on more and more of our transportation energy needs will come on-grid. Rail, EV, PHEV, and so on. Trucks and buses might be able to go electric, if battery storage capacity increases fast enough that they can go a full day and/or we create the infrastructure to switch batteries out on the go. Big ifs. But we won't be seeing plug-in ships and airplanes, not in my lifetime. It is possible that commercial ships will go nuclear, but even that unlikely outcome would still leave airplanes (and spaceflight). For these, we need chemical fuels. And if we want them to not be oil, natural gas, or liquified/gasified coal, the we're gonna need to make them synthetically.
Too good to be true. Beside before it becomes commercial, exxon will buy the patents and we will never hear about it again.
It's not a "Giant Leap," but another step to making hydrogen production and use a little cheaper. Still a very long way to go though. DB
The question is does this mean an efficiency improvement in comparison to the conventional process?
At the moment one of the problems for hydrogen as an energy storage medium is the poor efficiency of both the conversion of water to hydrogen and oxygen as well as the vice versa route.
JSDreyer
Germany land area == 349,223 SQ KM
Kansas land area == 211,900 SQ KM
So it's possible for Kansas to have a similar ( though smaller distributed renewable energy grid )
Yes I know --- not so many mountains but Kansas does have at least 50 mountains over 1,601 feet (487.98 m), so it still is feasible.
Anthony
Evaporation is a natural action for water -- and rain is a natural reaction for water vapor. As for environmental degradation -- closed loop systems can utilized man made reservoirs so not so much in the way of environmental degradation as damming natural waterways.
Hydrogen is much worse for grid based consumers than closed loop hydro - especially man made reservoirs - from an environmental viewpoint as well as a power in - power out view point.
On the other hand hydrogen is better for certain vehicle needs than grid based hydro power.....
As for nuclear poweredx ships -- if you think the Exxon valdez was a environmental disaster then try imaging the disaster with a nuclear powered cargo ship -- I can and it's much worse as well as more likely.
the point raised is correct - how is this different from common electrolysis which can be done using electricity and any conductive electrodes? How much greater is the efficiency? Numbers, we need numbers. It has been possible to split water into hydrogen and oxygen without any sophisticated catalysts and expencive materials for hundreds of years using DC, wires and some jars. Common electrolysis is pretty inefficient. If their catalyst boosts that process then good, but actual number might be more useful then just proclaiming this to be the holy grail of science and herald of hydrogen economy.
More information from reuters
And the "money" quote
They hope to have working commercial versions in 5 - 15 years
And yes the bold is my addition
@Raye
Well, apparently some of the benefits are the following: (from http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/oxygen-0731.html)
"Currently available electrolyzers, which split water with electricity and are often used industrially, are not suited for artificial photosynthesis because they are very expensive and require a highly basic (non-benign) environment that has little to do with the conditions under which photosynthesis operates."
/Jacob
@ TrollPatrol
Good work, that's exactly what I was wondering about. The Guardian article omitted that rather important tidbit. That little fact makes the importance of the breakthrough much clearer.
Also, my mention of KS wasn't to discuss KS. I was just pointing out that there are places that don't have enough elevation to use water as stored potential energy anything more than a fraction of what would be needed. I didn't realize that KS had that many mountains, though.
@ Anthony
TrollPatrol revealed the importance of this discovery: improved efficiency in the anode. I'm pretty sure the cathode can be made of platinum, nickel or stainless, but I'm not sure the efficiencies of each or their stability vis a vis the electrolyzer usually used to facilitate electrolysis.
The closed loop hydro systems I was reading about used enclosed storage tanks, which eliminates the environmental damage typically caused by dams as well as the evaporation issues. Large concrete structures do have their own issues, of course.
As for research reducing the cost of fuel cells, this invention proves the point. Electrolysis has been around, experimented with, and improved upon for more than 200 years, and yet this has just been discovered. The guy took 25 years to figure this out, and it won't be ready for market for another 10. The idea that a cheap fuel cell will be developed in our lifetimes isn't something we should be relying on. Battery technology seems to be improving much more quickly, and there are many more chemical combinations to make a battery than a hydrogen fuel cell, which invariably must contain some platinum to be reasonably efficient. Fusion would solve all of our electrical generation problems too, and its reasonable to assume advances will overcome the issues with creating an efficient fusion reactor. Will it happen in our lifetime? Not something we should be banking on.
Interestingly, I wonder if this discovery might not have application or lead to improvements in hydrogen fuel cells. A fuel cell essentially is electrolysis in reverse: combining hydrogen and oxygen to produce water and harvesting the electricity (it's a bit more complicated than that, but in essence that's what's happening).
I agree that cargo ships going nuclear is unlikely. It makes the ship and maintanance too expensive, and would require you to crew nuclear engineers. Electric cargo ships? The trick is keeping the salt water away from the batteries and engine, but it would work fine. Shipping is an order of magnitude or so more efficient than wheeled transport. Also, solar panels on the ship could recharge the cells in transit, and parasails are already being tested to reduce fuel costs by 15-20%.
There won't be an easy replacement for jet fuel, as 2% or so of all oil is refined into jet fuel, a massive amount. It could be produced from biodiesel, if you dedicated all biodiesel production to that end. As oil declines you might make it from natural gas. Space flight would be mostly unaffected. Most rockets use liquid hydrogen and oxygen, although some use kerosene.
In the end, it's fine to pursue a future technology based solution to the end of fossil fuels, but we should also be putting resources into solutions that use current technology in case fusion and fuel cells don't pan out. That's all I'm saying.
I too am wondering when talk and research will arrive as a real off the shelf item to purchase. I wonder where the road block are coming from...I'm guessing the big oil companies try to prevent development and mass production of new ideas. Am I wrong?
This is brilliant. As for the fuel cells, I seem to recall an article or 2 on Technology Review talking about a cheap fuel cell membrane that they developed. So that whole expensive fuel cell argument is not valid when you consider that both techs will be ready around the same time.
Why is it too good to be true? It's a huge breakthrough, but it's not like they created cold fusion or something like that. And I'm sure you're right about Exxon... They will buy the patent and put it in the pile with the 100mpg carburetor and the recipe to turn lead into gold. :rolleyes:
The real question is whether our fat dilatory government will first recognize, then commit resources to push development and commercialization of this without first taking 15 years to figure it out.
What we need is a catalyst to separate politicians from the hot air they produce and get something done, and rapidly.
I really wish people would stop looking for quick fixes and REDUCE CONSUMPTION FIRST. This technology would be cool, but it comes with it's own problems. Where, exactly, are they going to get the phosphate from? Phosphate mining is not exactly green. I lived in Pocatello, Idaho for many years and the phosphate plant owned by Simplot was one of the reasons I was glad to leave. Besides the problems caused by the mining (toxic runoff, destruction of scenic and ecologically important lands) the processing is also toxic and wasteful. I'm not sure this would be a better way than using platinum, just cheaper.
Closed loop hydro with man made reservoir can be built on long low incline slopes as well as short high incline mountain sides, it's just a different engineering and construction concern.
I have spoken to a friend with a more extensive interest in stabilized rammed earth and they believe that properly engineered stabilized rammed earth could be used for a considerable portion of the installation in place of concrete.
Thanks for highlighting this story...
Nocera's work is very significant as is the basic 'science' of hydrogen. As he is fond of saying- even if you are skeptical about H2 power, hydrogen science is intimately tied with hydrocarbon energy systems.
Despite all the skeptics who dominate the comments section of many H2/fuel cell posts-- it is an electron carrier with many benefits over battery systems (esp. with transportation and portable power) So I am patient to let H2 science run its course b/c there is much we still do not yet know.
I think Anthony hits it on the head with the real breakthrough - cost of materials.
I wrote a post recently about the need to educate the public on the role catalysts play in the future of energy
http://tinyurl.com/57yhjp
Posted at Memebox.com/futureblogger
"Energy startups see plenty of room at the bottom"
And for those interested in Nocera's case for hydrogen science - visit the MIT Lectures online
Joe, you hit the nail straight on the head, the science is starting to come about, now we just need a government that not only supports these new technologies but incourages further research and developments. Great job Nocera, please, keep up the good work!
That would mean their process is 500%-750% efficient. Ahem.
Trollpatrol,
just checked the reuters link and says 5 years for commercial development, not 15. We can't wait that long, can we?
I watched a PBS show on Green stuff a few days ago. The Tesla car guy said his engine was about 85% efficient. Is there any other technology which is more efficient and really usable today?
What, in your humble opinion, is the best current technology for powering automobiles? Is there an example, working model or at least a web page about it?