It’s so interesting how a car can run on hydrogen, but hardly anyone thought about how it is produced. There is no other by-product than water, but the process to obtain hydrogen gas involves sources that are not so clean.
HyperSolar is currently busy putting in place a carbon-free method, that cranks out hydrogen from wastewater with the help of solar energy.
Tim Young, HyperSolar CEO, started from the idea that since hydrogen is the “ultimate fuel” of the future, we should at least make it clean all the way.
He claims vehicles running on fossil fuel-based hydrogen are not in any way greener than regular fuels polluting the atmosphere. However, cars they would get powered by HyperSolar’s hydrogen production system will actually use solar energy and hydrogen only as its carrier.
It seems that this “solar-powered nanoparticle system” is inspired by nature (photosynthesis) and is surprisingly simple: the photoelectrochemical nanoparticles just glide serenely in the wasterwater that is being held in transparent vessels and that’s it: the sun comes and starts a hydrogen-producing reaction! In the process, the wasterwater gets purified, as well.
HyperSolar wouldn’t tell what stage of the process they’ve reached, but they must have some proof of viability that enables them to make such statements. Also, they insist the process has great commercial potential, due to the monitorization of the wastewater treatment and the production of hydrogen bromide and hydrogen chlorides.
In a final stage, I guess that an infrastructure needed to oust the gas would actually be the last thing they need. Now, who would’ve thought that there are different levels of cleanliness?
[via Gizmag]
