TCD researchers close to major breakthrough in renewable energy storage
Current tools used to split water are enormously expensive, and nobody has yet discovered catalysts– something that speeds up a chemical reaction – that are strong enough and that could do the job at a considerably lower cost.
Researchers at Trinity College Dublin (TCD) could be tantalisingly close to discovering a "holy grail" method of producing renewable energy where the only waste left over would be water.
With reducing carbon emissions foremost in the global fight to mitigate the climate crisis, the researchers explored whether it would be possible to use renewable electricity to split water, which is made up of hydrogen and oxygen, to produce green and energy-rich hydrogen.
If so, the hydrogen could then be stored and used in fuel cells, the team led by Max García-Melchor, Ussher assistant professor in chemistry at Trinity, and PhD candidate and researcher Michael Craig, claimed.
A fuel cell basically works like a battery does, but crucially they don't need recharging or go flat. They can be used to provide power for transportation, industrial and commercial buildings, homes, and long-term energy storage for the grid.
The prospect would allow the storage of energy for use when renewable sources like solar and wind are not available.
The big stumbling block is that the water is very sturdy and requires a great deal of energy to break up, so until now, the difficulty has not been worth the potential payoff.
Current tools used to split water are enormously expensive, and nobody has yet discovered catalysts – something that speeds up a chemical reaction – that are strong enough and that could do the job at a considerably lower cost.
Potentially, until now, that is.
The TCD team combined their chemistry smarts with very powerful computers to find one of the “holy grails” of catalysis. Using tools such as advanced quantum chemical modelling, they pinpointed nine possibilities that could do the job.
Three metals – chromium, manganese, iron – stand out as being especially promising, the team said.
Thousands of catalysts based around these key components can now be placed in a melting pot and assessed for their abilities as the hunt for the magic combination continues, they added.
Mr García-Melchor said: "Two years ago, our work had made the hunt for the holy grail of catalysts seem a little more manageable. Now, we have taken another major leap forward by narrowing the search area significantly and speeding up the way we search.
Mr Craig said he was hopeful that science could provide the world with entirely renewable energy.
"This latest work provides a theoretical basis to optimise sustainable ways to store this energy, and goes beyond that by pinpointing specific metals that offer the greatest promise.
“A lot of research has focused on the effective yet prohibitively expensive metals as possible candidates, even though these are far too rare to do the heavy lifting required to store enough hydrogen for society. We are focused on finding a long-term, viable option. And we hope we will.”
Mr García-Melchor told the they could now build a massive database of 80,000 potential catalysts.
"Our study also provides means to screen hundreds of potential catalysts in hours, compared to days or months if you were to do this in an experimental lab."
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