Hydrogen is not an energy source but an energy transfer medium since it requires more energy to produce the hydrogen than you get out of it when you use it as a fuel. If it was economical hydrogen fuel cells would be an ideal power source for motor vehicles if not for the negative ERoEI of hydrogen. But what if the negative ERoEI could be greatly reduced? Hydrogen is perhaps one of the most common elements on the Earth’s surface but it is tied up with with oxygen (H2O). Splitting water to make hydrogen at present is uneconomical due to energy requirements but research at Stanford University may be about to change all of that.
Now scientists at Stanford University have developed a low-cost, emissions-free device that uses an ordinary AAA battery to produce hydrogen by water electrolysis. The battery sends an electric current through two electrodes that split liquid water into hydrogen and oxygen gas. Unlike other water splitters that use precious-metal catalysts, the electrodes in the Stanford device are made of inexpensive and abundant nickel and iron.
“Using nickel and iron, which are cheap materials, we were able to make the electrocatalysts active enough to split water at room temperature with a single 1.5-volt battery,” said Hongjie Dai, a professor of chemistry at Stanford. “This is the first time anyone has used non-precious metal catalysts to split water at a voltage that low. It’s quite remarkable, because normally you need expensive metals, like platinum or iridium, to achieve that voltage.”
This should greatly reduce the negative ERoEI of hydrogen especially if the inevitable excess power from solar and wind are utilized. Given the low power requirements entirely solar powered hydrogen production facilities should be possible. It remains to be seen if the researchers can upscale their discovery but if they can it could truly be a breakthrough.
This discovery comes at a really good time since fuel cell automobiles from Toyota and others will become available in 2015.