Hydrogen is the Holy Grail of the new energy era, but getting it via electrolysis of water takes more energy than you get from using it in a fuel cell or burning it.
New crystal research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison may help you get it for ‘free’. Assistant Professor Huifang Xu, working with a team of researchers, have made zinc oxide and barium titanium oxide crystals that absorb vibration energy and generate large negative and positive charges on their surface. These charges split water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen gas.
The process is similar to the piezoelectric effect where a strain applied to the crystal creates a charge in the crystal structure, but here it is called a piezoelectrochemical effect.
The thin, flexible zinc oxide and barium titanium oxide crystals respond to ultrasonic (high frequencies above 20,000Hz) sound waves, causing them to oscillate. Changing the crystal lengths and diameters modifies the deflection and the excitation vibration frequency so they can be tuned to absorb energy in different frequency ranges and from different sound sources.
In testing, 18% of the noise energy can be converted into hydrogen and, at the same time, the noise energy is reduced. Maybe there are applications to absorb noise pollution and create energy at the same time, like placing water tanks with zinc oxide crystals next to busy highways and using the hydrogen/oxygen to run street lighting at night, or at airports, trains stations or anywhere there is noise with a suitable frequency content.
Visit: http://www.geology.wisc.edu/~hfxu/
Via Journal of Physical Chemistry and New Scientist
Show/Hide comment form
