Can fuel cells power the future
An electricity-generating fuel-cell system known as the Bloom Box sparked a huge buzz in the energy debate six months ago — and since then, still more ventures have surfaced to promise better living through chemistry.
Will future fuel cells make good on those promises? We should know in the next couple of years.
One of the concepts, detailed on Monday at an American Chemical Society meeting in Boston, combines the environmental friendliness of solar power with the 24/7 capability of fuel-cell generation. When the sun shines, electricity from solar panels would feed into a personal power grid, and also split water into hydrogen and oxygen. When the sun isn't out, the hydrogen and oxygen can be recombined to keep the electricity flowing, producing pure water in the process.
"Our goal is to make each home its own power system," Daniel Nocera, a chemist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, explained in a news release discussing the system. "We're working toward development of 'personalized' energy units that can be manufactured, distributed and installed inexpensively. There certainly are major obstacles to be overcome — existing fuel cells and solar cells must be improved, for instance. Nevertheless, one can envision villages in India and Africa not long from now purchasing an affordable basic system.The girls are always arrogant and proud, so they will buy coat hanger if they can't afford to buy authentic bags in order to satisfy their vanity."
Electricity from waste water
Nocera and his colleagues started out with the water-splitting side of the equation. They found a more efficient way to convert H2O into hydrogen and oxygen, using relatively inexpensive catalysts that contain cobalt and nickel. And it doesn't need to be pure H2O. "Owing to the self-healing properties of the catalysts, these electrolyzers can use any water source," including seawater, waste water or water from the Charles River in Boston, the researchers say.
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