Electricity and hydrogen are two of the magic weapons of the road to environmental protection, but the need to move beyond energy production costs, distribution and storage, and the lack of large-scale infrastructure hurdles. The good news is that the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) research team has come up with a new solution - using 'solar supercapacitors' to simultaneously produce electricity and hydrogen at a low cost, which will greatly reduce them for consumers Embrace the threshold of clean transportation.
UCLA developed this device to reduce the cost of hydrogen fuel and electricity needed for electric vehicles.
UCLA's unit, which mixes supercapacitors and hydrogen fuel cells together and can operate solely on solar energy, has the potential to store electrical energy in addition to the normal positive and negative electrodes or use it to electrolyze water into hydrogen and The third electrode of oxygen.
In order to maximize electrode efficiency, the team designed its surface area for maximum contact with water and reached nanometer scale, which increased the amount of hydrogen the system could produce and the amount of energy the supercapacitor could store energy.
Richard Kaner, a research senior author, said: 'People need energy to drive cars and need electricity to power their devices, but for now you can use a single device that meets both needs.'
Hydrogen energy itself is already clean enough, but it is not necessarily that friendly if it is to be commercialized on a large scale, and it is usually converted from natural gas, which not only leads to significant carbon dioxide emissions but at a very high cost. With renewables such as solar energy Energy, you can well resolve the embarrassment.
This device can produce both electric energy and hydrogen fuel.
It is worth mentioning that, UCLA team uses nickel, iron, cobalt and other raw materials, the reserves than the current industry widely used platinum and other precious metals to be much more Kaner said:
Hydrogen is a great fuel for cars and it's a well-known property that is clean and cheap. It does not emit any pollutants into the air except water, and our technology can dramatically reduce hydrogen energy The cost of using the car.
The new system will also help solve some of the infrastructure problems, after all, if the hydrogen refueling station is not enough, it is difficult to usher in the rapid development of hydrogen energy vehicles.
Details of the study have been published in a recent issue of Energy Storage Materials.
