Scientist Find Key To Lock Up Solar Power

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Wow, they reinvented the electrolysis of water, what a discovery!
Since the apparatus is going to be sealed anyway, they could just use a sulfuric acid solution and two carbon electrodes.
 
Splitting water isn't anything new. Batteries store electrical energy already. Why would you the extra expense of hydrogen and oxygen storage in a home, who would insure that ? Plus you need a fuel cell to combine the stored gases. While the new materials may be interesting, they should look at what's practical, not just what's do-able.
 
I like the way they do it now, big batch of dry cell batteries.
For my future prediction, I say batteries with carbon nano tubes or carbon nano tube capacitors.

 
Judging from the other comments I am not the first to go wth. But there has been a technology to store solar power for quite some time now the are called BATTERIES! And apparently my high school chemistry teacher was 20 years ahead of his time when he used electrolysis on water, filled a balloon with the H2 and put a match to it. Yeah, this is major news.
 
Back to the hydrogen myth. Hydrogen is a storage medium like a battery but with horrible storage density in this case. With compression and huge pressures, it becomes better, but you lost even more energy in compressing it. Add fuel cell efficiency and at this point, you would be lucky to have any energy left to even light an LED. Lead Accid batteries are far better than this complicated setup, and when recycled properly have similiar environmental impact, and no sound polution from a compressor running. You can't break the laws of physics so quit trying!
 
no shortage of hot air here. this is important development. traditional electrolisis requires paltinum(very$) and (I think) has some other unreasonable (environmentally unsound)requirements. I think this new process in more efficient too. Cobalt is apparently actually affordable. Yes we all know batteries store power (dumb smarta$$es). Compressed Hydrogen's power density far exceeds any current battery tech and is much lighter weight. honda new hydrogen car can go 280 miles on 5kg of hydrogen. That's about 1/8 the weight of gasoline! I dont know if it would be significant, but you could even recapture the compression energy (some ultralights cars run on compressed air but that's obviously completely different) Developments in nanofiber plastic will allow for light and strong tanks. No doubt batteries will store some power at home and in car, but hydrogen will likely play a big role, probably much bigger than batteries.
 
lead acid batteries are not a good solution. That's why no (real) maker of electric or hybrid cars uses them. It's the weight dumba$$.
new battery techs also have better denisity, some I think twice as good by volume. Battery expense and impact of manufacture (lith.ion and others, and its still relatively low power density are exactly why hydrogen is so attractive. duh duh duh duh.
 
Lead batteris are just too heavy. gee maybe its the lead. That's partly why no real maker of electric or hybrid cars uses them.
New battery tech has much better density too. But they are expensive and have environmental impact to make. While improving, the power density is still too low to be good storage for vehicle use. And theie are still the other considerations. The pack in the current Tesla weighs serveral hundred pounds, and takes 3.5 hrs to fully recharge. The batteries used in cars by Lighting Car co. are extrememly expensive, but they claim they recharge in 10 min!
Hopefully batteries become more power dense, more affordable and practical. That would make hydrogen less attractive.
 
Who cares how heavy the battery is. This is not for automotive use. This is for household/business use. Power density is not the big driving factor. It is cost. What can get the most storage for the cheapest price.
 
[citation][nom]stfuwontu[/nom]lead acid batteries are not a good solution. That's why no (real) maker of electric or hybrid cars uses them. It's the weight dumba$$.new battery techs also have better denisity, some I think twice as good by volume. Battery expense and impact of manufacture (lith.ion and others, and its still relatively low power density are exactly why hydrogen is so attractive. duh duh duh duh.[/citation]

Who cares how heavy the battery is. This is not for automotive use. This is for household/business use. Power density is not the big driving factor. It is cost. What can get the most storage for the cheapest price.
 
way to spend those university grants while denying the readiness of existing solar for primetime. feeding the grid during peak times (selling) and using the grid at night (buying) allows many ppl in california to power their homes and RAV4 EV's w/ $20,000 of rooftop solar which is roughly at 13% to 17% efficiency at best.
hydrogen will never be as efficient as current battery technology. you could have come up w/ the greatest invention in the world that would save the environment, but unless that idea is marketed properly to the general public and there becomes a demand for it, or until it gets passed thousands of lobbyists representing special interest groups it will never see the light of day.
we already have solutions to many of our problems.
www.ev1.org
 
They were talking about solar power on your roof. So the weight of some box sitting in my garage doesn't really matter! All I care about is ROI... the bottleneck is not the storage for home PV, it's the cells. Once they sort THAT out, getting electric cars is the easy part.

(THAT = cheap efficient cells)

p.s. lead batteries in a hybrid car would be enough to get 75% of people to work and back if they had 'free' energy at home to recharge with overnight. 500lbs of batteries might cut into your vehicles performance though.... we're trying to be green :>
 
Thank God for scientists, inventors, and engineers who work year-round to improve life for the rest of us. What percentage of us in the world has a job that pushes the envelope for human achievement and discovery? That small 0.1% should be venerated for their efforts.
 
traditional electrolisis requires paltinum(very$) and (I think) has some other unreasonable (environmentally unsound)requirements. I think this new process in more efficient too. Cobalt is apparently actually affordable. Yes we all know batteries store power (dumb smarta$$es). Compressed Hydrogen's power density far exceeds any current battery tech and is much lighter weight. honda new hydrogen car can go 280 miles on 5kg of hydrogen. That's about 1/8 the weight of gasoline!
Click to expand...
No, you really don't need platinum to do electrolysis. The only problem is the electrode erosion so you just need to have something chemically resistant and conductive.
You're also mistaking density for weight. Do you know how much pressure (~energy) you need to get 5kg hydrogen to have the same volume as gasoline? You have to consider this as well unless you wish to have the entire car space taken up by hydrogen tank.
 
I have been to a lecture Dr Nocera gave on a visit to the UK a few months ago and discussed this with him afterwards. The important things here are
1) It catalyses the production of O2 from water. This is a comcomittant part of H2 production and is energetically harder
2) The catalyst is evisioned as a 3-part 'sandwich' of 02 catalyst-photovoltaic cell-h2 catalyst. By catalysing the O2 production the PV part of the cell can be made far more efficient by utilising the red and possibly near-infrared part of the spectra
3) H2 is more efficent as a long-term energy storage medium. H2 tanks will not decay as batteries will, and we already have a large-scale distribution network for natural gas in place in many parts of the world. Piping gas is a more efficient way of moving energy around than lossy high voltage cabling.
4) The guy is (a) a genius, (b) has a PhD and (c) is a Professor at MIT. Most criticism here comes from people who (a) aren't, (b) never will have and (c) couldn't find MIT on a map of MIT 😉. He is right. You are wrong. Live with it :)
 
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