Hydrogen is one of themost promising fuels of the futurebut powerful now it ’s expensive to make in bulk . come in the work of a team of Stanford investigator who think they can makeit as cheap as fossil fuels — using just some water supply and sunshine .
https://gizmodo.com/this-liquid-hydrogen-uav-just-flew-for-two-days-straigh-504876691
presently , to make hydrogen out of water and twinkle scientist often use a solar panel to make electrical energy , which is then used to power a commercial-grade electrolyzer that split water into hydrogen and oxygen . But the guy at Stanford havebeen in use rolling those two constituent together — making it far tinny in the physical process .
The electrons created by solar panels can themselves power chemical reactions to split water into hydrogen and oxygen . One one-half of the electrons can be used to split the atom and form hydrogen , the other half to satiate the negatron shells of oxygen atoms .
Problem is , most of the fabric you ’d opt to make such a gimmick — say , silicon , which is the most effective — really rust incredibly quickly . Metal oxide can do a similar occupation , but are sorely ho-hum . But the Stanford squad hit on an idea : they coated silicon with a lean layer of nickel , just two - billionth of a metre slurred , to protect it .
Bingo . Instead of being destroy by corroding within hours , the researchers let the solar reaction run for three days before stopping to check for damage . They observe none . Not only that , their coated Si was over ten times quicker than substitute metal oxides . The research is publishedin Science .
That speed makes the new atomic number 28 - coated atomic number 14 gimmick fantastically efficient . In fact , the researcher believe that they can generate hydrogen in such a way that it can contend with fossil fuel on price . That may take a while , so do n’t hold your hint , but that hydrogen car ? It might not be as silly as it once sounded . [ ScienceviaTechnology Review ]
Image byAlan Levineunder Creative Commons licence
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