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Solar Energy to Hydrogen, All Night Long
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by SOLARLIFE | August 4, 2008 at 01:30 pm
233 views | 2 Recommendations | 4 comments
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MIT Copying the leave of a plant photosynthesis system.
The plant produces with sunlight sugar, to store for "night fuel"
Solar cells with specified Catalysts can do the same, converting
sunlight into Hydrogen, to store without batteries for "night fuel"
used in a fuel cell; The process found is a low energy conversion
SUN to Hydrogen.The idea to market time seems to be short.
MIT professor Daniel G. Nocera has long been jealous of plants. He desperately wanted to do what they do--split water into hydrogen and oxygen and use the products to do work. That, he figures, is the only way we humans can solve our energy problems; enough energy pours down from the sun in one hour to power the planet's energy needs for a year.
In January, only a month after reevaluating his methodology in the face of a frustratingly slow process, he finally found a way. "For six months now I've been looking at the leaves and saying 'I own you guys!'"
Nocera's discovery--a cheap and easy way to store energy that he thinks will be used to change solar power into a mainstream energy source--will be published in the journal Science on Friday. "This is the nirvana of what we've been talking about for years," said Nocera, the Henry Dreyfus Professor of Energy at MIT. "Solar power has always been a limited, far-off solution. Now we can seriously think about solar power as unlimited--and soon."
Plants catch light and turn it into an electric current, then use that energy to excite catalysts that split water into hydrogen and oxygen during what is called photosynthesis' light cycle. The energy is then used during the dark cycle to allow the plant to build sugars used for growth and energy storage.
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Most RecentMost Recommended Comments (4)
at 20:06 on August 6th, 2008
SOLARLIFE, I like this story. It's good stuff. Nice article. I just read about this at Environmental-Expert.com. Should have known the Solar King would have already found it :)
at 06:19 on August 7th, 2008
PlanMyGreen thanks for Info "Environmental-Expert.com" good article. MIT annonces Catlayst to split water H2O low power in Hydrogen to store. Similar trials have been made with Aluminiumoxyde; I don't believe to much in miracle powder, what is your opinion planmygreen ?
at 14:56 on August 7th, 2008
From the little information I know about this, I think your initial observations are correct. Though this may prove to be beneficial in the future, it is no where near ready to be applied to anything on a large scale. The cost alone of aluminum is a barrier to making this work on a large scale. Though we see aluminum every day in many products, it is not yet reasonable to be Incorporated into energy producing technology. Also, scale may be a problem. I think this technology has promise to power small engines that run from hydrogen, but that is providing we want our current fuel costs to be upwards of $3 or more per gallon. I haven's seen much on this concerning safety, that of course would be another prime concern. I would rather see processes that will create "fuel" and energy at pennies on the current dollar. But then again, if it helps to limit emissions and keep water sources and the air we breath clean, then its definitely a plus. Besides that, who knows, it could turn out that another catalyst may make this an extremely effective way of producing hydrogen to power engines. If you have any good links to more info about aluminum alloys powering fuel cells and engines, I would love to see them. The research being done here it definately worth the effort though, it is all about trial and error till scientists get it perfect.
at 15:06 on August 7th, 2008
PlanMyGreen, great knowledge article "aluminium catalyst ...Hydrogen production"; Thanks for co-writing. Well I have some news, 2 inventors experimented with Aluminium and water in France, one is meanwhile dead ? I agree the energy you save with Aluminium Hy production looks good , but you need first to make Aluminium with a lot of electicity.