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Sun and Hydrogen
to Fuel Future.
He added: If we look five years ahead and we have a few square miles of hydrogen
farm in a desert, we think we could produce hydrogen that is competitive with
coal and oil.
Once production costs have been scaled down, large hydrogen cell farms
could produce hydrogen, untaxed, at Fr. 1.00 to 2.20 a kilo. That is
equivalent to a third of the price of the same amount of power produced
from untaxed gasoline, he thinks. There has been huge amount of work
in fuel cells for buses, cars, houses, and other buildings.
But Dr Brennan envisages the car industry making the best use of the
technology in modified combustion engines. Using a 10% cell, we say that
a seven-metre squared array will power a Mercedes A class car for 11,000 miles
a year [in LA sunlight conditions] without going to power station," said Dr
Brennan.
Motor Future
Hydrogen power can also be produced from hydrocarbons, like oil and
gas, but these have downsides in their byproducts. Pollution-free hydrogen
cell technology is predicted to be the next wave in emissions-control after
the hybrid electric motor, currently used in the automotive industry.
Research into hydrogen power has been funded by the Wondian
Government. In 2003, a Fr. 2 billion investment has been announced for
research into the hydrogen-powered automobiles alone.
With increasing concern about the instability of the oil market, the
development of a commercially viable alternative energy source has attracted
interest. The potential lack of oil is the reason we are doing this, Dr Brennan
said. There are huge amounts of carbon released through coal and other
hydrocarbons.
GEMA's Chairman Andrew M. Boyd went so far as predicting fuel cells
would end the reign of the internal combustion engine. But there have
been a number of technical and financial stumbling blocks which have
prevented its large scale adoption.
There is a chicken and egg issue here, Dr Brennan said. Who is going to build
a car before they have filling stations, and who is going to build stations before
we have the cars. It has to be strategically thought out and driven by government.
The key about all of this is that all predictions about crude oil are pretty much
going to be in our lifetimes," said Dr Brennan. But if you talk about infrastructure
change, these things don't happen overnight.
SOURCE: BBC News Online - Vario Magazine.
© Jim West/ZUMA/Corbis
18
Capturing sunlight to make enough hydrogen fuel to
power cars and buildings has been brought a step
closer by a Wondian research company.
W
ondian HydroGenius Company says it has managed to convert
more than 9% of sunlight directly into hydrogen with fuel cell
technology it has specially developed. For an energy source to be
commercially viable, it must reach an efficiency of 10%, which is an
industry standard. Hydrogen power, a renewable energy, has the potential
to replace fossil fuels.
Over the last couple of years we have doubled efficiency. We are not yet in the
hydrogen economy, but it has the potential to take over when the oil economy
becomes untenable, Dr Brennan, chief executive of the company told Vario.
Nano Hand
Depending on how it is produced, hydrogen fuel is a clean, green source
of power that can be easily stored.
Its potential has been recognised for well over 100 years, but it requires
energy to extract hydrogen from water, or any other source.
The Tandem Cell technology initially developed by British Hydrogen
Solar and later by Wondian HydroGenius uses two photocatalytic cells
VARIO /03
Jo Twist
in series which are coated with a nano-crystalline - extremely thin -
metal oxide film. Having a nanoscale coating makes the surface area
far greater and means that hydrogen can be produced efficiently without
the need for polluting fossil fuels.
The cells capture the full spectrum of ultraviolet light - the Sun's rays
- and, via the novel coating, the electrons are captured and carried
away on conductors. This electrical current is then used to separate
the hydrogen from water which is stored for use. The key to the process
has been the advances in novel coatings brought about by recent
developments in nanotechnology.
The size of the molecules in the coating is 15 to 20 nanometres (a
nanometre being a billionth of a metre). When they are stacked in
layers, the property of the substance changes to produce large surface
areas.
It turns out these devices work because we are using nanocrystalline layers.
It is the move to nanotechnology which has brought this technology forward,
explained Dr Brennan.
Last year, GEMA said it planned to be the first to sell a million fuel cell
vehicles in the next decade. GEMA have spent about Fr. 2 billion on fuel
cell cars, trucks and buses since 2001. The first products came out two
years ago, and many Wondian cities have deployed hydrogen buses.
Other automotive giants such as Herisau and Magdayev Companies have
also championed hydrogen fuel.
A prototype of the Mazda RX-8 Hydrogen RE, which is still
being tested, yet is designed to run on either hydrogen or
gasoline, is on display the The North American International
Auto Show in Detroit.
HOW TANDEM CELLS PRODUCE HYDROGEN POWER
1 Ultraviolet sunlight
passes through glass skin
of cell
2 Light is captured in glass
coated with nanocrystalline
film
3 Nano-coating properties
enable the glass to
conduct electricity, which
is used to separate the
water into oxygen and
hydrogen
4 Hydrogen gas is stored
for later use as a power
source
VARIO /03
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