Flexible Nanocrystal Fibers Can Harness Tidbits of Waste Energy to Create Hydrogen Fuel

By Jeremy Hsu Posted 03.12.2010 at 6:23 pm 4 Comments

Waste Energy Creates Hydrogen A newly developed method harvests small amounts of waste energy and harnesses them to turn water into usable hydrogen fuel. iStockphoto/Mustafa Deliormanli

Piezoelectric materials that create energy when flexed might go beyond recharging our smart phones and help make hydrogen fuel. Scientists have harnessed piezoelectric energy from nanocrystal fibers to split water into oxygen and hydrogen gas.

"This is a new phenomenon, converting mechanical energy directly to chemical energy," said Huifang Xu, a geologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He and his colleagues have dubbed it the piezoelectrochemical (PZEC) effect.

The usual brittle nature of crystals such as zinc oxide and barium titanate gives way to more flexible fibers at tiny scales. The Wisconsin researchers found that the tiny nanocrystal fibers can scavenge energy based on small mechanical "noise" such as vibrations or flowing water.

The chemical energy of hydrogen fuel also represents a more stable method of storage than an electric charge, Xu explained.

This represents perhaps another small (hah!) step toward squeezing energy from many tiny sources. People have harnessed mechanical energy for centuries on the large scale by using waterwheels and dams, but even raindrops should theoretically work in this case.

Perhaps the bigger question mark still hangs over the viability of a hydrogen economy. Other research teams have investigated ways of producing hydrogen through artificial leaves, as well as storing hydrogen within new types of solids. But even with hydrogen fuel-cell cars hitting the road, the supporting hydrogen infrastructure such as refueling stations remains in its infancy.

[via ScienceDaily]

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4 Comments

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Ternesto

03/13/10 at 5:31 pm

If they perfect this technology for vehicles, you could just hook up a microphone for the driver to power the vehicle by singing when he runs out of other fuel.
This could prove to be a nightmare for the passengers though. he he...

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extremechiton

03/13/10 at 7:09 pm

or the car could take in water via humidity in the air for power. and in rain, even more power.

or if ur passenger has to use the restroom, more free energy there. although... cars may need a special section for that.

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bobob

03/14/10 at 11:13 am

In my imaginary world where hydrogen power is actually used instead of just talked about, they use this principal on the roads to create hydrogen to power the cars on them. A little solar power to close the energy gap and viola, closed system transportation.

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Grant.Upjohn

03/14/10 at 8:32 pm

extremechiton has a good idea with the extraction of the water from the humidity in the air, as that is how dehumidifiers work, however the amount of energy used in the condensors to actually thrun the water from vapour to a liquid, would probably make it unusable in the car, unless the condensors were located on the roof of the car and the Piezoelectric materials were located in tubes running from the roof of the car to the floor of the car, therefor able to use gravity of the water from the roof of the car to the floor to generate electtricity from the falling water. you could combine this with some veins similar to the artificial leaf, which uses evaporation to pull water through the veins, so combine the two technologies together and you could have a substantial energy source.

Would probably be more energy efficient if you could just rely on rain or on filling it up with water from a tap yourself. Would certainly make cars look different if they have the fuel tanks on the roof, instead of on the chasis of the car...

Why not instaed install huge resevoirs on the tops of buildings, as there is normally a lot of wasted rain water that flows off the sides of buildings and down the storm water pipes, why not catch it in resevoirs on the roof and then with valves release a certain amount of it down specially designed tubes down the sides of the building and inside these tubes have the Piezoelectric materials to scavenge the energy. Instead of having the pipes go straight down, get them to zig zag down the building, so that you reduce the amount of head you get at the bottom of the pipes and gather as much energy as possible.

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