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Harry Gray's solar fuel cells will create fuel from sunlight
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09-14-2009 - energy
Harry Gray: This is what we call artificial photosynthesis, because natural photosynthesis uses natural materials, living materials. And artificial photosynthesis uses man-made materials. That’s the only difference.
Harry Gray, professor of chemistry at Caltech, is talking about solar fuel cells. Just as plants use sunlight to make their own energy, Gray says his solar fuel cells could one day create enough fuel from the sun to provide the energy humanity needs.
Harry Gray: Nature has already given us the example of what we must do.
In place of a leaf, Gray’s team is building a tiny solar device to capture sunlight. The energy of the sun is used to split water into hydrogen and oxygen to create hydrogen fuel. He said these solar devices could carpet rooftops or operate in middle of the ocean, connected to fuel cells that will convert the solar fuel to energy. But first, Gray said, scientists need to find a way to make it cheap.
Harry Gray: This is the challenge right now, to build a device as good as the ones we’ve already built that are extremely expensive. We need to build cheap devices, non-toxic devices, out of abundant materials.
He said these solar fuel cells are still about 20 years away. Gray believes that it will take what he calls a “solar army” of researchers to find cheap, abundant materials for the solar fuel cell device. The key element is the catalyst to split water.
Harry Gray: This is the big challenge now, is to find the world’s best catalyst to extract protons and electrons from water by controlled oxidation.
He said that hydrogen is an effective and flexible fuel.
Gray said this kind of fuel could be very similar to the type of fuel systems we have today, but renewable.
Harry Gray: It may well be that we will have solar power plants in the middle of the Pacific ocean, that will be making liquid fuel and we’ll be transporting that in with tankers, just the way we transport oil now.
Gray said that solar fuel cells could provide clean, carbon-free energy to the entire the world, including developing countries.
Harry Gray: The most important message I can give is, start thinking solar.
Our thanks today to the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation
Written by Lindsay Patterson
Comments (5)
at 10.52 pm on 09-18-2009 victor shivone
I'm very excited from reading this article. Excellent. It's right around the corner. Big proponent of fuel cells. I don't understand why more money isn't put into the developement of fuel cells. So much money has been invested into bio fuels and it seems antiquated. Fuel cells make so much sense for so many reasons.
at 01.41 am on 09-16-2009 Emil I. Massoud
While listening on the English News on ICRT / Taipei Radio Station this morning in my car, I heard excerpts of an interview with Professor Harry Gray. I am a supply business owner living & working out of Taiwan & China, and would be very interested to speak with Professor Gray about ways we can cooperate in order to bring down the costs of this new technology, to make it accessible to many more people around the world!! I believe such project will be a great challenge for a worthy cause, one that we all can do something to alleviate! I am still a small business, but have great Team & good connections in Taiwan & in China. Would be willing to help Professor Gray in his cause, even if there is no room to participate for some profit!
Thank you!
Emil
9/16/09
14:40
Replyat 8.10 pm on 09-26-2009 Benjamin Napier
Burning hydrogen releases much less energy than is required to split the water molecule. If we could make the plants cheaply enough and it were possible to have them small enough to be useful, there is promise here. Cost, efficiency and size are real problems. Then, the fuel must be transported. LOX and liquid hydrogen cost a lot to compress, cool, liguify and transport. The tanks are heavy and the residence time in the transport tanks is limited. And then there is the safety aspect, especially in passenger vehicles.
Time and economics will tell. If this technology can make it WITH NO TAXPAYER MONEY being wasted, I am all for it.
Replyat 08.37 am on 10-13-2009 Solar Advocate
There is an article that proposes using solar-electric power to run two types of cathodes- one to separate oxygen from water and one to separate hydrogen from water. Both types of cathode are now in existance. The two gases can be stored indefinitely and re-combined in a fuel cell. The byproduct is water, which can be recycled in a closed-loop system. This is a major breakthrough in storing solar-derived energy that solves major storage problems and provides on-demand generation of electricity at any time. Link: http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/933237/solar_energy_breakthrough_a_giant_leap.html?cat=2
ReplyAdd your own comment
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at 10.52 pm on 09-18-2009 victor shivone
I'm very excited from reading this article. Excellent. It's right around the corner. Big proponent of fuel cells. I don't understand why more money isn't put into the developement of fuel cells. So much money has been invested into bio fuels and it seems antiquated. Fuel cells make so much sense for so many reasons.
at 01.41 am on 09-16-2009 Emil I. Massoud
While listening on the English News on ICRT / Taipei Radio Station this morning in my car, I heard excerpts of an interview with Professor Harry Gray. I am a supply business owner living & working out of Taiwan & China, and would be very interested to speak with Professor Gray about ways we can cooperate in order to bring down the costs of this new technology, to make it accessible to many more people around the world!! I believe such project will be a great challenge for a worthy cause, one that we all can do something to alleviate! I am still a small business, but have great Team & good connections in Taiwan & in China. Would be willing to help Professor Gray in his cause, even if there is no room to participate for some profit!
Thank you!
Emil
9/16/09
14:40
at 8.10 pm on 09-26-2009 Benjamin Napier
Burning hydrogen releases much less energy than is required to split the water molecule. If we could make the plants cheaply enough and it were possible to have them small enough to be useful, there is promise here. Cost, efficiency and size are real problems. Then, the fuel must be transported. LOX and liquid hydrogen cost a lot to compress, cool, liguify and transport. The tanks are heavy and the residence time in the transport tanks is limited. And then there is the safety aspect, especially in passenger vehicles.
Time and economics will tell. If this technology can make it WITH NO TAXPAYER MONEY being wasted, I am all for it.
at 08.37 am on 10-13-2009 Solar Advocate
There is an article that proposes using solar-electric power to run two types of cathodes- one to separate oxygen from water and one to separate hydrogen from water. Both types of cathode are now in existance. The two gases can be stored indefinitely and re-combined in a fuel cell. The byproduct is water, which can be recycled in a closed-loop system. This is a major breakthrough in storing solar-derived energy that solves major storage problems and provides on-demand generation of electricity at any time. Link: http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/933237/solar_energy_breakthrough_a_giant_leap.html?cat=2
ReplyOur Thanks To:
Harry Gray
Harry Gray is looking at how chemistry can help to harness the power of the sun to meet the world's energy needs. He is the Arnold O. Beckman Professor of Chemistry and founding director of the Beckman Institute at the California Institute of Technology. Professor Gray's interdisciplinary research program addresses a wide range of fundamental problems in inorganic chemistry, biochemistry, and biophysics.