Belgian researchers develop a solar panel that produces hydrogen.
[RTBF] The team of Johan Martens, Professor of Chemistry at the Faculty of Bioengineering at KUL, has been working for ten years on the development of a very special solar panel. Its principle: to produce hydrogen from the water vapor present in the air. With twenty panels, a family should be able to be autonomous in electricity and heating throughout the year.The classic recipe for hydrogen production requires water and electricity. Environmentally, we could do better. One of the challenges of recent years has been to produce hydrogen from renewable sources. This is the great advance of this Louvanist invention.
What already exists
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For example, there is already a building autonomous in energy thanks to hydrogen in Nantes for example. But in this case, photovoltaic panels produce electricity that splits the water molecule into two parts: hydrogen on one side, oxygen that goes back into the atmosphere. As for hydrogen, it can be stored and reused as electricity via a fuel cell. The production of hydrogen requires a lot of energy.
Innovation brought by KUL researchers
Belgian researchers have developed a process that uses air rather than water.
Tom Bosserez, a bioengineer at KUL.
The air contains water.
“The air enters our panel. At the same time, solar energy arrives on our solar panel and transforms the water in the air into hydrogen that comes out here on the side.” The advantage of the process is that it can be used even in parts of the world where there is a lack of water.
Johan Martens, a professor at KUL’sFaculty of Bioengineering.
You only need sunlight and water vapor.
“And all over the world you have water vapor in the air, even in the driest places in the world.”
The panel produces an average of 250 liters of hydrogen per day.
“Then you have to store that hydrogen in a pressurized container, just like you would with natural gas,” Martens says.
“It is like natural gas, except that you do not produce greenhouse gases when you use it. When hydrogen is used, it recreates water. The particularity of our invention is that hydrogen is produced at the rate of the sun, at much weaker electric currents. So we optimize each step and minimize the losses.”
Since our colleagues at the VRT published an article on their solar panel, Johan Martens has been inundated with emails. His phone didn’t stop ringing. In particular, he receives expressions of interest from commercial companies that show interest in his panel.
“We had a dream, which we are now realizing. We really have the feeling that our panel fills a gap.”
The panel will be tested for the next two to three years, and Professor Martens is counting on commercialization at the end of this trial period. Thanks for staying up to date with Hydrogen Central.
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Belgian researchers develop a solar panel that produces hydrogen, March 1, 2021
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