British (well Russian emigre) scientists have discovered that the material they first developed ten years ago has a unique property which could mean at some time in the future there will be cars that generate their own fuel.
A report in Friday's Independent tells how Professor Sir Andrei Geim of Manchester University has found that graphene membranes allow hydrogen protons to pass through while excluding other gases and hydrogen itself. Applying an electric charge would mean that the hydrogen protons and the electrons could combine with oxygen in a conventional fuel cell that are already being used to power vehicles.
“It was difficult not to speculate. If you can pump protons from a hydrogen-containing gas into a chamber that doesn’t contain anything, you start thinking how you can exploit this?” he said.
“One of the possibilities we can imagine, however futuristic, which has to be emphasised because everything has been shown on a small scale, is applying a small electric current across the membrane and pushing hydrogen though the graphene or boron nitrite membrane,” he explained.
“Essentially you pump your fuel from the atmosphere and get electricity out of this fuel, in principle. Before this paper, this wouldn’t even be speculation; it would be science fiction. At least our paper provides a guidance and proof that this kind of device is possible and doesn’t contradict to any known laws of nature,”
Sir Andrei was one of the joint winners of a Nobel Prize for the discovery of graphene. No indication of the size of collector or electrical power required to produce enough hydrogen protons to run a fuel cell is given in the report however there is an intriguing possibility if the system can be shown to work on a larger scale. Imagine if you will, a vehicle that has a hydrogen proton collector extracting them from the air - a "hydrogen containing gas". If large surface areas are required, we already have car parts that rely on having large areas exposed to the atmosphere - we use them to cool down the water in engines and they're called radiators. The same principle of forcing air to pass over, in this case a graphene membrane, could collect the fuel - PV arrays on the roof could provide some of the power needed to add back the electrons although the cell itself might do this. Even while the car was not in use, the proton collector could quietly go about its job.
Don't just think the graphene could be used in the fuel cell. Its high strength could mean much lighter composite vehicles with the power/weight ratio advantage that would bring.
The Independent in a separate editorial calls the discovery potentially as important as the first splitting of the atom also achieved at Manchester.
Now it appears that Sir Andre has found another potential use based on graphene’s ability to form a semi-permeable membrane that is porous to positively-charged hydrogen atoms, but to nothing much else. This could prove to be the deal breaker that transforms the hydrogen fuel-cell business, which has been somewhat stalled by the technical limitations.
Even more intriguing is the possibility that graphene may be used to “harvest” hydrogen from the air, providing a new source of carbon-free fuel. Combined with fuel-cell technology, the breakthrough could prove to be as important as splitting the atom in terms of energy.