Rather than emit greenhouse petrol into the standard atmosphere the way gasoline does , fuel cellular phone run on hydrogen release water . Until now , the clean way to produce hydrogen required the use of prohibitively expensive precious metals . Now , investigator have developed a water system - splitting gadget that runs on ordinary , store - bought batteries . Theworkwas published inNature Materialsthis workweek .
By combining stored hydrogen petrol with oxygen from the air , hydrogen fuel cellular telephone farm electricity to power cars . But some so - called zero - emissions vehicles run on atomic number 1 made fromnatural gas , which is still a fossil fuel .
For a truly emanation - costless path to produce hydrogen , scientists use electric currents to split the hydrogen and oxygen atoms in water – a process called electrolysis . Stick two electrode into consummate water , clear electricity through them , and then hydrogen appears at the negatively - charged cathode while O appears at the positively - charged anode , Science explains . The problem is , those electrodes require precious metal catalysts . The expensive metals conduct electrical energy well without decaying in water too easily .
For a cheaper water splitter , a team lead byHongjie Dai from Stanfordturned to inexpensive , abundant nickel note and smoothing iron for their electrocatalysts . These were enough to split water system at room temperature with a single 1.5 - V stamp battery ( pictured above ) . Notice how the natural gas are bubbling up to the Earth’s surface . ( you’re able to see it clean in thisvideo . )
“ This is the first time anyone has used non - precious metal catalysts to split water at a voltage that low , ” Dai excuse in anews release . “ It ’s quite singular , because unremarkably you need expensive metal , like atomic number 78 or iridium , to accomplish that potential . "
And as it turns out , a nickel note / nickel - oxide structure was more active than pure nickel metal or pure nickel oxide alone . " This novel structure favors hydrogen electrocatalysis,”Dai says , “ but we still do n’t fully understand the science behind it . "
Because their inexpensive electrocatalyst lowers the electric potential required to split up H2O , the engineering science could keep open atomic number 1 producer billions in electrical energy costs if it make it into large - scale production . But for the close future , the team is focusing on improving durability . Their electrodes disintegrate slowly over metre , and the current equipment run for only days at a time . Their goal is to have it run for months .
