Solar Power Breakthrough Stores Energy for Later Use
Within 10 years, homeowners could power their homes in daylight with solar photovoltaic cells, while using excess solar energy to produce hydrogen and oxygen from water to power a household fuel cell. If the new process developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology finds acceptance in the marketplace, electricity-by-wire from a central source could be a thing of the past.”This is the nirvana of what we’ve been talking about for years,” said MIT’s Daniel Nocera, senior author of a paper describing the simple, inexpensive, and efficient process for storing solar energy in the July 31 issue of the journal “Science.”
“Solar power has always been a limited, far-off solution. Now we can seriously think about solar power as unlimited and soon,” Nocera said.
Until now, solar power has been a daytime-only energy source, because storing extra solar energy for later use is expensive and inefficient. But Nocera and his team of researchers have hit upon an elegant solution.
Inspired by the photosynthesis performed by plants, Nocera and Matthew Kanan, a postdoctoral fellow in Nocera’s lab, have developed a new process that will allow the Sun’s energy to be used to split water into hydrogen and oxygen gases.
Later, the oxygen and hydrogen can be recombined inside a fuel cell, creating carbon-free electricity to power buildings, homes or electric cars - day or night.
The key component in the new process is a new catalyst that produces oxygen gas from water - another catalyst produces valuable hydrogen gas.
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