Discovery of Cheap Catalyst Advances Case for Hydrogen Fuel

May 4th, 2011 by Glenn Meyers

Source: www.newenergyandfuel.com

Inexpensive hydrogen-powered automobiles may not be so far away from reality as we might think.

The Green Car Congress and others have reported that researchers from the United States and Denmark have developed a molybdenum sulfide catalyst that functions as an inexpensive alternative to platinum—the traditional, too expensive hydrogen fuel catalyst. The result of this discovery now shows a viable pathway for making cheap hydrogen fuel from sunlight and water.

As a fuel, hydrogen is energy dense and clean, releasing only water upon combustion. Some methods for producing hydrogen, however, have had some adverse atmospheric impacts. Most hydrogen that is produced today comes via natural gas through a process known as steam methane reforming (SMR). SMR creates large emissions of CO₂ – a contributor to atmospheric warming. The best alternative for making hydrogen fuel comes from using sunlight and water – a process referred to as photo-electrochemical, or PEC water splitting.

According to a release issued yesterday by EurekAlert, the molybdenum sulfide discovery provides a remarkable new vista for the development of this fuel: “The discovery is an important development in the worldwide effort to mimic the way plants make fuel from sunlight, a key step in creating a green energy economy.”

Theorist Jens Nørskov from the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory at Stanford University, and a team led by Ib Chorkendorff and Søren Dahl at the Technical University of Denmark reported news of this discovery last week in Nature Materials.

Progress for this type of technology has been limited due to a lack of cheap catalysts that can speed up the generation of hydrogen and oxygen, writes Melinda Lee, the press contact at SLAC, a laboratory exploring questions in photon science, astrophysics, particle physics and accelerator research. SLAC is located in Menlo Park, CA, where it is operated by Stanford University for the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science.

“If we can find new ways of rationally designing catalysts, we can speed up the development of new catalytic materials enormously,” Nørskov said regarding the discovery.

His team investigated hydrogen producing enzymes—natural catalysts—from certain organisms, using a theoretical approach Nørskov’s group had been developing to describe catalyst behavior. Their calculations led them to related compounds, leading eventually to molybdenum sulfide as an inexpensive solution.

For the curious chemist in readers, this QuickTime movie from Nature.com shows some of the reaction that takes place.

For champions of green energy, this discovery may prove to be immensely important in the development of hydrogen as a choice fuel.

Keep up to date with all the hottest cleantech news by subscribing to our (free) cleantech newsletter, or keep an eye on sector-specific news by getting our (also free) solar energy newsletter, electric vehicle newsletter, or wind energy newsletter.

Tags: EurekAlert, Hydrogen, inexpensive catalyst for hydrogen fuel, molybdenum, Nature Materials, Nature.com, QuickTime, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Stanford University, Technical University of Denmark, United States Department of Energy, US

About the Author

Glenn Meyers is a writer, producer, and director. Meyers was editor and site director of Green Building Elements, a contributing writer for CleanTechnica, and is founder of Green Streets MediaTrain, a communications connection and eLearning hub. As an independent producer, he's been involved in the development, production and distribution of television and distance learning programs for both the education industry and corporate sector. He also is an avid gardener and loves sustainable innovation.

Peter Gunn

The oil and battery industries spend tens of millions of dollars per year on disinformation campaigns and fake pundits/shills to discredit hydrogen because it beats their products on every metric.The waste product from hydrogen is potable water, the waste product from oil is cancer. (Oil is the root cause of cancer. ) It is worth anything to end Cancer so any arguement against hydrogen is offset by this fact alone. The waste product from batteries is Lithium poisoning and EMF caused cancer (The GM- EV1 was destroyed because of the EMF cancer risk).Hydrogen can now be efficiently made from water and the competing interests can’t control water so that want H2 stopped.The more batteries you add to an electric car, the less far it goes. Hydrogen carries more energy at less weight than any battery.Detroit has a deal with the oil companies to make money by using oil. Big oil does not want Detroit using H2. Big Oil controls the U.S. DOE and orders them to delay hydrogen.For every negative you could get a shill to make-up about hydrogen, there are thousands of technical papers that disprove it. For every negative that you hear about oil and batteries there are hundreds of thousands of technical papers that prove it.The gulf coast will now experience a doubling of cancer rates within 10 years, essentially killing off the deep south because of the BP Oil spill.Hydrogen runs the sun and that seems to work pretty well.
- Anonymous
  
  We do not have a cost effective way to produce hydrogen from water. We also have no distribution system to get it from producer to vehicle.
  
  Battery chemicals are contained and recycling processes are developed. We are already recycling lithium-ion batteries. “EMF caused cancer” lacks credibility.
  
  Please provide some support for your “Detroit has a deal with the oil companies to make money by using oil.” claim. Sounds like a bunch of conspiracy bunk to me. And flies in the face of the fact that Detroit is starting to go electric.
Anonymous

It’s not the catalyst that makes hydrogen fuel expensive, it’s the electricity. It takes 60 kWh to make a gallon equivalent of hydrogen. At $.10/kWh, that’s $6.00 a gallon.

We won’t see hydrogen fuel until we have electricity at $.05 kWh or less. Solar can’t do that, but maybe some excess wind power (at night) can.

The World needs to begin building a bridge to the Hydrogen Economy, but that will require clean, affordable electricity – something we haven’t found yet. That’s the missing breakthrough, not a better catalyst.
- Anonymous
  
  The production cost for wind-electricity is roughly a nickel now. During off-peak hours wind farms can sell for less than a nickel and make money.
  
  But “$3/gallon” won’t put hydrogen fuel cell vehicles on the road. EVs using average priced ($0.12/kWh) electricity are running on “$1/gallon” juice. Hydrogen will have to get well below “$1/gallon”
  to push EVs off the road once we have 200 mile range and an adequate number of rapid charge points.
- Russhamiton123
  
  Electricity is not the problem if you have a catalyst that will let you do it with a small enough current . So if your catalyst works good enough you can use a cheap pv to get the goods. Actually now a number of new catalyst have been found…take a look at what Dan nocera has been doing at MIT for instance….
Anumakonda Jagadeesh

Good Post. Hydrogen is the future energy carrier along with fuel cells.

Dr.A.Jagadeesh Nellore(AP),India
Anumakonda Jagadeesh

Good Post. Hydrogen is the future energy carrier along with fuel cells.

Dr.A.Jagadeesh Nellore(AP),India
Anonymous

Do you really think there’s much chance that we’ll ever drive hydrogen-fueled cars?

It looks like we’ll have affordable EVs with very good range (>200 miles), rapid charging (<10 minutes), and rapid charging stations in less than five years.

Hydrogen has three hurdles to overcome – 1) cheap, non-natural gas production, 2) efficient, affordable storage/distribution, and 3) affordable, long-life fuel cells.

Production and non-platinum fuel cells have made progress in the lab, but both are seemingly far from production. What works in the lab does not always transfer to real-world usage.

Distribution would require creating an entirely new infrastructure of hydrogen "gas stations" and delivery trucks. Hydrogen is bulky and hard to contain.

I can see hydrogen becoming a way for us to store energy in order to shift high supply to high demand, but I'm not optimistic about a hydrogen transportation future.

If EVs become accepted as an affordable, convenient form of personal transportation I can't see hydrogen fuel cell vehicles becoming adequately cheaper so that they could gain a meaningful foothold. Where will the demand arise to spend the billions of dollars to create hydrogen fueling stations?
Anonymous

Do you really think there’s much chance that we’ll ever drive hydrogen-fueled cars?

It looks like we’ll have affordable EVs with very good range (>200 miles), rapid charging (<10 minutes), and rapid charging stations in less than five years.

Hydrogen has three hurdles to overcome – 1) cheap, non-natural gas production, 2) efficient, affordable storage/distribution, and 3) affordable, long-life fuel cells.

Production and non-platinum fuel cells have made progress in the lab, but both are seemingly far from production. What works in the lab does not always transfer to real-world usage.

Distribution would require creating an entirely new infrastructure of hydrogen "gas stations" and delivery trucks. Hydrogen is bulky and hard to contain.

I can see hydrogen becoming a way for us to store energy in order to shift high supply to high demand, but I'm not optimistic about a hydrogen transportation future.

If EVs become accepted as an affordable, convenient form of personal transportation I can't see hydrogen fuel cell vehicles becoming adequately cheaper so that they could gain a meaningful foothold. Where will the demand arise to spend the billions of dollars to create hydrogen fueling stations?