New, cost-efficient method of creating portable hydrogen fuel cells identified

A new, cost efficient method of producing hydrogen for portable fuel cells has been proposed by a researcher at the College of Science at Shanghai University, China.

Washington, June 29 : A new, cost efficient method of producing hydrogen for portable fuel cells has been proposed by a researcher at the College of Science at Shanghai University, China.

Zhen-Yan Deng, lead author of the study in the Journal of the American Ceramic Society has found during experiments that modified aluminium powder can be used to react with water to produce hydrogen at room temperature and under normal atmospheric pressure.

The new method, according to him, is cost-efficient and will make fuel cell use more practical and realistic for many applications.

Compared to other hybrids, aluminium is cheaper and requires no other chemical in order to react with water.

"This makes the modified aluminium powder a more economically viable material to generate hydrogen for the future use of portable fuel cells," said Deng, a postdoctoral candidate at the Department of Ceramics and Glass Engineering at the University of Aveiro, Portugal, and now a professor at Shanghai University.

According to him, this new method also negates the need for the complicated and expensive equipment presently being used for producing hydrogen.

Efforts to produce large amounts of hydrogen for portable devices have previously focused on other chemicals, which has until now, proved costly and difficult.

ANI