Underwater solar cells are being used to
help create cheap hydrogen fuel directly from water. By using the power of the
sun, the plan is simple: make sure that we can create hydrogen from
sustainable, repeatable, ethical sources. And for many people, that is going to
be this new plan that is being put together at the University of Bath’s Centre
for Sustainable Chemical Technologies.
The obvious need for humanity to cut down
on its carbon consumption has been a talking point for a while. As the years go
on, though, the warnings are becoming clearer: we need to act, and soon.
Therefore, we need more ethical forms of energy production, and hydrogen could
be the key to doing just that. Given it produces zero carbon emissions, it
could be used to power everything such as cars to ship, trains, planes and
other vehicles. In short, this could allow us to create a system where
‘recyclable energy’ becomes not just a hope, but a reality.
A
new form of sustainable power?
The process is an expensive one at the
moment, with the cost of turning water into hydrogen and oxygen being very
energy-intensive. However, the University of Bath has some interesting solar
cells in development. These cells use light energy to split H2O.
The perovskite solar cells will be made
from a structure similar to calcium titanium oxide. They are often more
cost-effective than silicone alternatives and tend to be much smaller in
profile. As such, they could be created to work in larger areas, and could
avoid some of the logistical challenges of previous iterations of such a
technology.
By using a waterproof coating that is made
from graphite, this removes the problem where the solar cells made from
perovskite were not handling water contact well. As such, this allows for up to
30-hours of time underwater without any damage being done to the cells.
For reference, that is close to 10-hours
longer than the previous record.
For years, we’ve been looking to find a
few solutions as to how we can overcome the climate breakdown we are
witnessing. While by no means a definitive solution for all of the issues we
face, this is almost certainly a positive step in the right direction and could
be the key to getting a meaningful response from the energy industry. If this
project continues to improve as it does, we could see something truly
incredible come to fruition in regard to creating cheap and abundant hydrogen
fuel.
Citation
https://www.bath.ac.uk/announcements/solar-powered-hydrogen-fuels-a-step-closer/
