{"id":7389,"date":"2013-01-14T00:13:51","date_gmt":"2013-01-14T07:13:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cafe.foundation\/blog\/?p=7389"},"modified":"2013-01-14T00:13:51","modified_gmt":"2013-01-14T07:13:51","slug":"cambridge-mit-chasing-room-temperature-hydrogen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/cafe.foundation\/blog\/cambridge-mit-chasing-room-temperature-hydrogen\/","title":{"rendered":"Cambridge, MIT Chasing Room-Temperature Hydrogen"},"content":{"rendered":"

News from Cambridge University shows some promise for inexpensive production of hydrogen, an elusive process considering the lightest element in creation is also the most common, said to make up 90 percent of the visible universe.\u00a0 On earth, it readily combines with oxygen to form water, a handy thing to have around for the benefit of our species.<\/p>\n

Getting hydrogen out of the water so that we can burn it in our cars and airplanes is a frustrating process, though, often requiring more energy for the extraction than can be obtained from its combustion.<\/p>\n

According the National Renewable Energy Laboratory<\/a>, \u201cTo make [hydrogen] usable in fuel cells or otherwise provide energy, we must expend energy or modify another energy source to extract it from the fossil fuel, biomass, water, or other compound in which it is found. Nearly all hydrogen production in the United States today is by steam reformation of natural gas. This, however, releases carbon dioxide in the process and trades one relatively clean fuel for another, with associated energy loss, so it does little to meet national energy needs.\u201d<\/p>\n

The NREL discusses four other methods of producing hydrogen, but each ends up costing too much for the energy created, or emits CO2 or other gases that may be more harmful than the resulting hydrogen isbeneficial in the long term.<\/p>\n

Thermochemical hydrogen comes from heating biomass or fossil fuels with little or no oxygen present and creating synthetic gas or \u201csyngas.\u201d\u00a0 This syngas can be catalytically converted to increase the amount of hydrogen, but still with gaseous emissions.<\/p>\n

Electrolysis can split water into hydrogen and oxygen, reversing the reaction in a fuel cell.\u00a0 The NREL points out the process must use an inexpensive source of electricity such as wind to make economic sense.\u00a0 Wind\u2019s variability limits its use for full-time hydrogen production, however.<\/p>\n

Electrochemical photolytic (PEC) hydrogen production combines electrolysis with photovoltaic (PV) electricity to provide the necessary energy for splitting water.\u00a0 This direct process is efficient, but requires PV materials \u201cstrong enough to drive the water split and stable in a liquid system,\u201d two essentials apparently difficult to achieve with current materials.<\/p>\n

Biological Photolytic Hydrogen<\/a> emulates nature, using photosynthesis to make hydrogen instead of sugar and oxygen.\u00a0 On the surface, this seems exceedingly green, but the catch here is that the algae and photosynthetic bacteria used to produce hydrogen don\u2019t work well in an oxygen environment, which the enzymes involved also produce.<\/p>\n