A company named HyperSolar, Incorporated has recently revealed a technological breakthrough in using solar plus water to produce hydrogen. And the kicker is that any kind of water, dirty to clean can be used in this process.
How does the breakthrough technology do this? The solar electrolysis of water starts at the nanoscale in order to gain efficiency and reduce costs.
According to HyperSolar’s CEO Tim Young, “Recently, we successfully developed an inexpensive coating for our water-splitting nanoparticles that protect the particles from photocorrosion and common water impurities. Additional laboratory tests and technical development reveal that this coating can also protect the nanoparticles when submerged directly in harsh water conditions such as lake water, wastewater, and seawater.
“The implications of our technology may be world changing. If we can successfully complete the development of a low cost, highly efficient solar powered water-splitting nanoparticle, we can use readily available seawater, runoff water, river water, or wastewater, to produce large quantities of hydrogen fuel to power the world. When the hydrogen fuel is used in fuel cells or combustion, clean water (pure H2O) returns back to the Earth. HyperSolar is making steady technical progress to enable this vision.”
So, there you have it. Not only will this new technology be useful in creating massive amounts of hydrogen in a renewable fashion, it will also be useful in purifying water that is not clean and sending the purified water back to planet Earth.
In addition, the location of these solar to hydrogen production stations can be very diverse from high population cities to the far reaches of developing 3rd world nations. The only limitation is the access to some kind of water, dirty, clean or anything in-between.
Looks to me like they are reading Dan Nocera’s papers (from MIT and Sun Catalytix) and replicating his work. It doesn’t look like there’s anything new there.
I also worry that their CEO has “…over 15 years of management experience in media and Internet technology companies.” Don’t know how well that translates to the clean energy arena.
–Keith
http://blog.fuelcellnation.com