This Advance Brings Us a Lot Closer to a "Hydrogen Economy"

[rangerrebew]

This Advance Brings Us a Lot Closer to a "Hydrogen Economy"

Engineers already knew how to make hydrogen gas using solar power, but a new approach makes the process more durable

    By Melissa C. Lott | Scientific American May 2017 Issue
 

Hydrogen is currently used to upgrade crude oil and synthesize ammonia, a critical building block of the fertilizers applied in modern agriculture. It also could be valuable as a feedstock for generating green electricity and as an ingredient in environmentally friendly fuel cells to power cars and trucks. But hydrogen is commonly produced from natural gas heated by steam, which results in greenhouse gas emissions and other environmental problems. Thus, scientists have been working to replace this process with one that taps a renewable energy source—and just such a breakthrough was announced in a paper recently published in Nature Energy.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/this-advance-brings-us-a-lot-closer-to-a-hydrogen-economy/

[Suppressed]

@thackney

I believe you had some comments on hydrogen economy.  I can't recall who else...was it @Weird Tolkienish Figure ?

[Elderberry]

"Turner's design held the record for the highest solar-to-hydrogen conversion efficiency until 2015. But the acidic solution to which the cell was exposed while in use quickly broke it down, making the hydrogen it produced too expensive.

For the new design, researchers led by chemist Jing Gu of San Diego State University added coatings to the semiconductor layers to prevent acid corrosion. These protective coatings significantly extended the life of Turner's high-efficiency design and produced a PEC device that retains 80 percent of its capabilities in durability tests."

It doesn't say how long the life was extended with the added coatings. And it doesn't say what the efficiency is, just that 80% of its capabilities remain.

[Joe Wooten]

The trouble with hydrogen as a fuel is that it takes much, much more energy to make hydrogen than you get out of it as a fuel. It makes not one bit of difference if you use electricity from a high efficiency PV cell or from a coal fired steam plant, it still is not economical to make it as a transport fuel or as a fuel for fuel cells. It's a losing proposition wither way and always will be. The chemical bonds hydrogen makes with oxygen and carbon are very strong and take a lot of energy to break.