Sentences with phrase «fuel cells»

We could make small - scale microbial fuel cells that use human waste to make drinking water, electricity, or both.

Typically, silicon has been used after lithography and etching as a supporting component of small oxide fuel cells.

And the logistics and transport industries will have to switch from internal combustion engines to fuel cells and driverless transport.

A key question for policymakers is, which transportation technology cuts total emissions at the lowest cost — batteries or fuel cells?

«Designing inexpensive fuel cells: A protecting umbrella against oxygen.»

Catalysts that drive the oxygen reduction reaction that lets fuel cells turn chemical energy into electricity are usually made of platinum, which stands up to the acidic nature of the cell's charge - carrying electrolyte.

The prototype fuel cells have such desirable features as the ability to recharge and minimum loss of energy while idling.

SOFCs have long been seen as second - string to the more well - known hydrogen - based fuel cells.

They compared cars that run on batteries versus hydrogen fuel cells in a hypothetical future where the cost of electric vehicles is more affordable.

«Ruthenium rules for new fuel cells: Project disperses single atoms on graphene to match platinum standard.»

It's possible to produce hydrogen to power fuel cells by extracting the gas from seawater, but the electricity required to do it makes the process costly.

«Unlike other fuel cells which transport positively charged [hydrogen, or H +,] ions through a membrane, solid oxide types use a ceramic oxide — through which negatively charged oxygen ions pass,» Stokes explains.

Rice University scientists have fabricated a durable catalyst for high - performance fuel cells by attaching single ruthenium atoms to graphene.

A kind of buffer protects the catalysts against the hostile conditions encountered in fuel cells, which have been to date dismissed utilization.

Many communities would be better off investing in electric vehicles that run on batteries instead of hydrogen fuel cells, in part because the hydrogen infrastructure provides few additional energy benefits for the community besides clean transportation.

«Battery cars a better choice for reducing emissions than fuel cells.»

This figure shows the crystal structure of Sc - doped BaZrO3 to be used as an electrolyte material in intermediate temperature solid oxide fuel cells (IT - SOFCs).

Two - way fuel cells Meanwhile, Versa, a solid oxide fuel cell stack supplier, is working with Boeing and «a large European company» on an innovative reversible SOFC that cycles back and forth between providing power and electrolyzing water into hydrogen and oxygen, Stokes says.

The team in Bochum and Mülheim focused nevertheless on a new strategy to accommodate sensitive catalyst to the working conditions of standard fuel cells.

Capacitors have the handy ability to store and release electrical energy very quickly — much more quickly than the batteries and fuel cells already being used in electric and hybrid - electric cars.

But these fuel cells require an electrocatalyst — a platinum surface — to increase the reaction rate, and the cost of the precious metal makes it hard for hydrogen fuel cells to compete economically with the internal combustion engine.

The innovation is especially significant for small devices, Hunter says, because other energy - storage technologies — such as fuel cells, batteries, and flywheels — tend to be less efficient, or simply too complex to be practical when reduced to very small sizes.

He sees a bright future for sodium - embedded carbon and the improvements it offers in solar tech, batteries, fuel cells, and supercapacitors.

These fuel cells do not harvest electricity as an output.

They serve as catalysts to propel the most efficient fuel cells, but they are costly and rare.

Fuel Cells Electricity from any source, such as solar, wind and even coal, can be used to break up water molecules into their hydrogen and oxygen components in a device called an electrolyzer.

«Also, the PEM fuel cells exhibit high efficiency in electric energy generation.»

Hydrogen fuel cells may be the best option for powering zero - emission vehicles: Toyota has just introduced a hydrogen - powered car in Japan and will make them available in the United States in 2015.

The board is a DC / DC converter that evens out the power generated by the fuel cells, which fluctuates with the amount of sweat produced by a user, and turns it into constant power with a constant voltage.

Now, a metal - free alternative catalyst for fuel cells may be at hand.

To benefit in twenty years» time from many of the proposed dual - use technologies — such as fuel cells — it must invest alongside industry now.

The engineers were able to work around the hydrogen storage problem by using non-polluting Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM) fuel cells and a process of aluminum activation patented by the paper's co-authors, Prof. Alon Gany and Dr. Valery Rosenband.

Aircraft manufacturers, including Boeing and Airbus, have already investigated using onboard fuel cells.

Oxygen electrochemistry plays a key role in renewable energy technologies such as fuel cells and electrolyzers, but the slow kinetics of the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) limit the performance and commercialization of such devices.

The program is an opportunity for consumers in California, New York State and the District of Columbia to test about 100 of the company's Equinox sports utility vehicles powered by hydrogen fuel cells.

A downside of fuel cells, however, is that they have a capital cost in the thousands of dollars per kilowatt of capacity, and the round - trip efficiency through the electrolyzer to the fuel cell and then back into current is less than 50 percent — meaning that for every two kilowatt - hours put in the bank, only one comes back out again.

According to the Technion researchers, fuel cells can even play an energy saving role in airline and airport ground support operations when they are on used for systems such as de-icing and runway light towers.

«Superior hydrogen catalyst just grows that way: Project aim at reducing cost of hydrogen fuel cells.»

Currently, electrolyzers (machines that split water into its constituent hydrogen and oxygen) need a catalyst, namely platinum, to run; ditto fuel cells to recombine that hydrogen with oxygen, which produces electricity.

He also hinted that DOE could launch a new manufacturing innovation institute that would help to further reduce the cost of fuel cells.

Saab's combustion - control engine has leapfrogged the manufacturers still studying fuel cells, methanol fuels, and electrics by reinventing an ordinary internal - combustion gasoline power plant that recycles unburned components of its exhaust.

Therefore, it must be first generated (e.g., by electrolysis of water), then stored, to be finally used — ideally in fuel cells transforming chemical energy directly into electrical one.

Hydrogen is another attractive by - product of wastewater, and some of Logan's research at Penn State involves looking into how to capture hydrogen to run fuel cells.

With fuel cells, as with batteries, «there is still the need for substantial cost reduction,» Moniz said.

Materials with these novel characteristics would be useful in devices such as rechargeable batteries, sensors, gas converters and fuel cells.

The study was in fact funded by the European project ChipCAT, which aims at finding novel materials for the next generation of fuel cells.

Precious metals have long been used as conducting materials in batteries and other types of fuel cells but are too expensive to use at a commercial scale in microbial fuel cells.

He notes that of the nearly 4,000 papers published on microbial fuel cells, less than 2 percent report on processing volumes of water larger than one liter.

Energy - converting devices like fuel cells being developed to power some types of electric vehicles rely on platinum's catalytic properties to transform

Instead, the Administration's plans for energy conservation and using energy sources with less CO2 emission will help in the short - term, he said; down the road, a new National Climate Change Technology Initiative will help develop cutting - edge technologies such as fuel cells and carbon dioxide sequestration, Bush said.