Well, as per the latest news, a pair of chemists from the University of Calgary has discovered a new device which can help in the large scale production of power from the wind and the solar energy.
Two scientists namely Simon Trudel and Curtis Berlinguette have invented a new device which is highly environment friendly and is easily customizable. As said by them this new machine can turn water into hydrogen fuel and thus it generates electricity during the process. This electricity, which is generated during the process of conversion, can be easily stored. They have also claimed that this method of generation of electricity is very cheap and it is almost about 1000 times cheaper than most of the processes that are used for doing the same thing at present.
All of us know that wind energy and solar energy are renewable sources of energies. They are also considered to be one of the cleanest sources of electricity, but in spite of all its advantages, there are some drawbacks. The amount of power that is generated by the wind energy and the solar energy mainly depends on the supply of wind and solar light. Thus it can be seen that we cannot get a constant supply of power from wind and solar energy and it entirely depends on the supply of wind and solar light. So, it becomes necessary for us to store the wind energy and solar energy for future use.
Technically, we can store electricity by converting water into hydrogen and oxygen molecules through the process of electrolysis. The process of electrolysis is carried out with the help of a device called an electrolyser. Then we can also get electricity from the chemical energy by the recombination of hydrogen and water molecules in a fuel cell.
Berlinguette said that the breaking of water molecules into hydrogen molecules and oxygen molecules is a very complicated reaction. Due to this reason, the reaction is very slow compared to the other chemical reaction, but it can be made a bit faster with the addition of extra electricity. Berlinguette also said that without a proper supply of catalyst, the amount of electricity will be needed about two or three times more than the normal need.
Usually catalysts are compound that speeds up the rate of a reaction efficiently. Previously water was electrolysed using catalysts that are very rare, costly and at the same time they were also very toxic. A new catalyst has been recently invented by Berlinguette and Trudel which is much cheaper than the previous catalysts and this new catalyst is also non toxic.
The University of Calgary has also stated that Fire Water Fuel Corporation plans to bring out a commercial version of this electrolyser in the market by 2014 and also a home version will be made available by 2015.