MIT chemists report storing method of solar power

William Atkins
Friday, 01 August 2008 18:47

Science - Energy

Nocera says, "It's cheap, it's efficient, it's highly manufacturable, it's incredibly tolerant of impurity and it's from earth-abundant stuff.” [Reuters]

The team’s next step is to build a full-scale version of their hydrogen-producing system. They hope that such a system would still be available for general use within ten years.

Their paper “In Situ Formation of an Oxygen-Evolving Catalyst in Neutral Water Containing Phosphate and Co2+,” is published online July 31, 2008 in the journal Science.

The abstract of their paper states, “The utilization of solar energy on a large scale requires its storage. In natural photosynthesis, energy from sunlight is used to rearrange the bonds of water to O2 and H2-equivalents.”

They continue, “The realization of artificial systems that perform similar "water splitting" requires catalysts that produce O2 from water without the need for excessive driving potentials.”

And, “Here, we report such a catalyst that forms upon the oxidative polarization of an inert indium tin oxide electrode in phosphate-buffered water containing Co2+. A variety of analytical techniques indicates the presence of phosphate in an approximate 1:2 ratio with cobalt in this material. The pH dependence of the catalytic activity also implicates HPO42– as the proton acceptor in the O2-producing reaction. This catalyst not only forms in situ from earth-abundant materials but also operates in neutral water under ambient conditions.”

For additional information, please go to the Scientific American article “Hydrogen Power on the Cheap--Or at Least, Cheaper”