Science Daily February 1, 2023 The use of vast amounts of high-purity water for hydrogen production may aggravate the shortage of freshwater resources. Seawater is abundant but must be desalinated before use in typical proton exchange membrane (PEM) electrolysers. An international team of researchers (China, Australia, USA – Kent State University) has demonstrated direct electrolysis of real seawater that has not been alkalised nor acidified, achieving long-term stability exceeding 100 h at 500 mA cm−2 and similar performance to a typical PEM electrolyser operating in high-purity water. This was done by introducing a Lewis acid layer (for example, Cr2O3) on transition metal oxide catalysts […]
Tag Archives: Alternate energy
Ammonium is the secret ingredient in stable, efficient & scalable perovskite solar cells
EurekAlert December 20, 2022 Controlling the crystallization process of perovskite thin films to obtain a high-quality material is one of the most challenging aspects for upscaling perovskite solar cell (PSC) technology. However, to date, lead acetate has been used exclusively as a precursor for the synthesis of methylammonium (MA) or cesium (Cs) based perovskites, which are unstable and less efficient. Researchers in Australia produced high-quality large-area formamidinium–caesium mixed-cation perovskite films by blade-coating a lead acetate-based precursor formulation in an ambient laboratory environment, with the use of NH4+ as a volatile cation to drive off acetate during annealing, leading to formation […]
Glass-like shells of diatoms help turn light into energy in dim conditions
Nanowerk November 22, 2022 Using a toolkit consisting of numerical models and four microscopy techniques, researchers in Canada evaluated the optical response of frustules belonging to the species Nitzschia filiformis. Localized regions of the frustule exhibited functionalities including diffraction, lensing, waveguiding, circulation, filtering, resonances, and dispersion control. They showed that these functionalities are complementary to each other in contributing to the solar energy harvesting mechanisms of capture, redistribution, and retention. In this context, frustule performance was enhanced by perturbations to its sub-wavelength structure. According to the researchers their finding provides quantitative support to the hypothesis that the frustule enhances photosynthesis […]
Tandem solar cells with perovskite: Nanostructures help in many ways
Science Daily October 24, 2022 Perovskite–silicon tandem solar cells offer the possibility of overcoming the power conversion efficiency limit of conventional silicon solar cells. Researchers in Germany have developed perovskite–silicon tandem solar cells with periodic nanotextures that offer various advantages without compromising the material quality of solution-processed perovskite layers. They showed a reduction in reflection losses in comparison to planar tandems, with the new devices being less sensitive to deviations from optimum layer thicknesses. The nanotextures also enabled a greatly increased fabrication yield from 50% to 95%. The open-circuit voltage was improved by 15 mV due to the enhanced optoelectronic properties […]
A little strain goes a long way in reducing fuel cell performance
Science Daily September 9, 2022 Using a proton-conducting oxide as an electrolyte film in electrochemical devices introduces an interface, which thermally and chemically generates mechanical strain. To reduce the strain researchers in Japan focused on BZY20, which is a combination of yttrium, barium, zirconium, and oxygen atoms. They found that the atoms on the edges of this cube are 2% closer at the interface between the oxide and the surface than in layers far away from the surface. This compressive strain reduces the proton conductivity to nearly 1/100,000 of what it is in bulk samples. As the layers build up, […]
Producing hydrogen from seawater
Phys.org September 13, 2022 The direct electrolysis of seawater is greatly inhibited by the oxidation of Cl– to free chlorine, an undesirable, corrosive byproduct. To suppress the interference of Cl– and any other ion, researchers in Canada developed a freestanding, electrically conducting, 3D macroporous reduced graphene oxide (rGO) scaffold with cobalt oxide particles selectively deposited on the internal walls of its closed pores. The pore walls act as membranes composed of stacked rGO flakes; the nanochannels between rGO layers are permeable to water and gases while preventing the diffusion of dissolved ions such as Cl–. Due to this, the catalytic […]
Researchers help reveal a ‘blueprint’ for photosynthesis
Science Daily September 9, 2022 The cyanobacterial antenna structures, which are called phycobilisomes, are complex collections of pigments and proteins, which assemble into relatively massive complexes. Researchers have been unable to get the high-resolution images of intact antennae needed to understand how they capture and conduct light energy. An international team of researchers (USA – Michigan State University, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, UC Berkeley, Czech Republic) documented several notable results, including finding a new phycobilisome protein, observing two new ways that the phycobilisome orients its light-capturing rods that hadn’t been resolved before, and the structure of the antenna is available […]
New Prototype Device Harvests Water From The Air to Make Hydrogen Fuel
Science Alert September 7, 2022 Current and potential energetically passive procedures for improving atmospheric water harvesting (AWH) capabilities involve different strategies and dedicated materials. In this paper researchers in France have reviewed the advantages and limitations of different AWH strategies from the perspective of morphology and wettability optimization, substrate cooling, and sorbent assistance. They have demonstrated various applications based on advanced AWH technologies. They proposed a prospective concept of multifunctional water vapor harvesting panel based on promising cooling material, inspired by silicon-based solar energy panels providing a brief outlook of its advantages and challenges…read more. Open Access TECHNICAL ARTICLE
Japan Is Dropping a Gargantuan Turbine Into The Ocean to Harness ‘Limitless’ Energy
Science Alert June 10, 2022 To tap into the source of power beneath the waves an industry in Japan has constructed a 330-ton prototype of a device called Kairyu whose structure consists of a 20 meter (66 foot) long fuselage flanked by a pair of similar-sized cylinders, each housing a power generation system attached to an 11-meter-long turbine blade. When tethered to the ocean floor by an anchor line and power cables, the device can orient itself to find the most efficient position to generate power from the push of a deep-water current, and channel it into a grid. Kairyu […]
Light instead of electricity: A new kind of ‘green hydrogen’
Phys.org May 31, 2022 Photocatalytic water splitting concept is not yet used industrially. An international team of researchers (Austria, Germany, Japan) has found a new combination of molecular and solid-state catalysts to transform water into O2 molecules, and hydrogen ions into H2 molecules. They anchored clusters made up of cobalt, tungsten and oxygen for oxidizing oxygen, and clusters of sulfur and molybdenum for creating hydrogen molecules on a surface of light-absorbing support structures such as titanium oxide. The energy of the absorbed light led to the creation of free-moving electrons and free-moving positive charges in the titanium oxide. These charges […]