Scientist Find Key To Lock Up Solar Power
Source: Tom's Guide | Keywords: solar, greetech, research
Cambridge (MA) - If you have ever looked into installing solar panels on the roof of your home, then you may have found that the technology can cost you tens of thousands of dollars, the power gain is very limited at this time and power is only produced during daylight hours. But, it seems, science is working on each of those shortcomings and we are hearing about possible new solutions, including much more efficient solar cells almost on a weekly basis. In the most recent development, MIT scientist claim they have now found a way to capture solar power, convert it and store it so it can be used during night times.
There is no doubt the solar energy may be among the greenest and most promising ways of generating electricity, but at least today there are just too many holes in the infrastructure between generating and distributing solar energy to make it a mainstream solution for virtually any household. One of the big holes could be closed soon as MIT professor Daniel Nocera, and Matthew Kanan, a postdoctoral fellow in Nocera’s lab, claim to have found a way to store solar power.
The technology is based on the idea to use the sun’s energy to split water into hydrogen and oxygen gases. The oxygen and hydrogen can be recombined inside a fuel cell, creating what appears to be completely carbon-free electricity to power a household or your electric car, day or night. According to Nocera, the key component in the process is a new catalyst that creates oxygen gas from water. The catalyst consists of cobalt metal, phosphate and an electrode.
When placed in water and electricity (which can include solar- or wind-based sources) is applied the cobalt and phosphate form a thin film on the electrode, and oxygen gas is produced. Combined with another catalyst, such as platinum, which can produce hydrogen gas from water, the system can duplicate the water splitting reaction that occurs during photosynthesis.
Nocera said that the catalyst works at room temperature and in neutral pH water.
More engineering work needs to be done to integrate the new scientific discovery into existing photovoltaic systems, but Nocera said he is confident that such systems will become a reality. The scientist believes that the technology could become a mainstream solution within 10 years. He also noted that "electricity-by-wire from a central source could be a thing of the past" by then. Of course, solar cells will need to become much more efficient, but considering the fact that the sunlight that hits the earth every hour carries enough energy to power the entire planet for one year, there seems to be enough opportunity to justify increased efforts in solar research.
Storing solar power, however, is not an entirely new idea and has been described on much smaller and perhaps not as green levels before. For example, car manufacturer Fisker said that it will be offering the installation of house solar panels as an option for its upcoming Karma hybrid sedan. The energy captured during the day is envisioned to charge a battery unit placed in the garage which can be used to charge the car overnight or simply when it is parked in the garage.
-
Previous News Article
Researchers Confirm Water On Mars -
Next News Article
Cuil Beats Google ... In One Key...
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.
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.
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 :>
give me a 9 volt battery and a dish of water and 2 copper wires, i'll create hydrogen for you...
Hydrogen storage is already commercially available and economical.
See the Proton Energy Systems (now owned by Distributed Energy)
The membrane hydrogen production by electricity is quiet, efficient and quite green. See http://www.distributed-energy.com/ [...] nsite.html
Batteries?... please go back to high school chemistry class.
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.
Well, I just wish it were helium instead. Then we could fill balloons and talk funny.
Well apparantly Jack Nicholson is a time-traveler as well as an LA Lakers fan. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjfONpsFvyM
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
. He is right. You are wrong. Live with it 
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