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Could Sunlight-Powered Hydrogen Production Plants be the Future of Energy?

31 July 23

Scientists at Rice University have been successful in turning sunlight into hydrogen with record efficiency. This is all thanks to a single, robust, economical, and scalable device of their design, that combines electrocatalysts with next-generation halide perovskite semiconductors.

In the pursuit of cleaner future, humanity already has clean alternatives to most fossil fuel powered energy sources of the past and present. Now mind you, there are still many hurdles on our way to fully indoctrinate green energy.

Electrical vehicles (EVs) still have issues with range, scarcity of minerals used in their battery production, and the capacity and effectiveness of the current charging grid. With that in mind, EVs are already proven to be a viable alternative to cars with internal combustion engines.

But what about planes? Not too many of us will be willing to give up air travel all in the name of a cleaner future. At this point in time planes powered by electricity are simply not feasible.

So, what are we going to do? Well, the old and trusty jet engine that was designed almost 80 years ago and to this day powers most commercial air liners can run on hydrogen fuel just fine.

There are two big problems with hydrogen:

  • Storing hydrogen is difficult and requires more physical tank space than jet fuel.
  • Currently it requires a lot of energy to convert water into hydrogen with the help of either steam-methane reforming or electrolysis. This energy, of course, is produced by combustion power plants that pollute our atmosphere.

Rice University engineers may have an answer to the hydrogen production problem their device has achieved 20.8% solar-to-hydrogen conversion efficiency.

The device is known as a photoelectrochemical cell that is because the absorption of sun light, conversion to electricity, and the use of that electricity to power a chemical reaction that produces hydrogen occurs in the same device.

The device is also easily scalable, due to record low costs compared to hydrogen production methods of the past.

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