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From left, Jeffrey Long, Christopher Chang and Hemamala Karunadasa have discovered an inexpensive metal that can generate hydrogen from neutral water, even if it is dirty, and can operate in sea water. Credit: Photo by Roy Kaltschmidt, Berkeley Lab Public Affairs

Hydrogen would command a key role in future renewable energy technologies, experts agree, if a relatively cheap, efficient and carbon-neutral means of producing it can be developed. An important step towards this elusive goal has been taken by a team of researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California, Berkeley. The team has discovered an inexpensive metal catalyst that can effectively generate hydrogen gas from water.

“Our new proton reduction catalyst is based on a molybdenum-oxo metal complex that is about 70 times cheaper than platinum, today’s most widely used metal catalyst for splitting the water molecule,” said Hemamala Karunadasa, one of the co-discoverers of this complex. “In addition, our catalyst does not require organic additives, and can operate in neutral water, even if it is dirty, and can operate in sea water, the most abundant source of hydrogen on earth and a natural electrolyte. These qualities make our catalyst ideal for renewable energy and sustainable chemistry.”

Karunadasa holds joint appointments with Berkeley Lab’s Chemical Sciences Division and UC Berkeley’s Chemistry Department. She is the lead author of a paper describing this work that appears in the April 29, 2010 issue of the journal Nature, titled “A molecular molybdenum-oxo catalyst for generating hydrogen from water.” Co-authors of this paper were Christopher Chang and Jeffrey Long, who also hold joint appointments with Berkeley Lab and UC Berkeley. Chang, in addition, is also an investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI).

Hydrogen gas, whether combusted or used in fuel cells to generate electricity, emits only water vapor as an exhaust product, which is why this nation would already be rolling towards a hydrogen economy if only there were hydrogen wells to tap. However, hydrogen gas does not occur naturally and has to be produced. Most of the hydrogen gas in the United States today comes from natural gas, a fossil fuel. While inexpensive, this technique adds huge volumes of carbon emissions to the atmosphere. Hydrogen can also be produced through the electrolysis of water – using electricity to split molecules of water into molecules of hydrogen and oxygen. This is an environmentally clean and sustainable method of production – especially if the electricity is generated via a renewable technology such as solar or wind – but requires a water-splitting catalyst.

Nature has developed extremely efficient water-splitting enzymes – called hydrogenases – for use by plants during photosynthesis, however, these enzymes are highly unstable and easily deactivated when removed from their native environment. Human activities demand a stable metal catalyst that can operate under non-biological settings.

Metal catalysts are commercially available, but they are low valence precious metals whose high costs make their widespread use prohibitive. For example, platinum, the best of them, costs some $2,000 an ounce.

“The basic scientific challenge has been to create earth-abundant molecular systems that produce hydrogen from water with high catalytic activity and stability,” Chang says. “We believe our discovery of a molecular molybdenum-oxo catalyst for generating hydrogen from water without the use of additional acids or organic co-solvents establishes a new chemical paradigm for creating reduction catalysts that are highly active and robust in aqueous media.”

The molybdenum-oxo complex that Karunadasa, Chang and Long discovered is a high valence metal with the chemical name of (PY5Me2)Mo-oxo. In their studies, the research team found that this complex catalyzes the generation of hydrogen from neutral buffered water or even sea water with a turnover frequency of 2.4 moles of hydrogen per mole of catalyst per second.

Long says, “This metal-oxo complex represents a distinct molecular motif for reduction catalysis that has high activity and stability in water. We are now focused on modifying the PY5Me ligand portion of the complex and investigating other metal complexes based on similar ligand platforms to further facilitate electrical charge-driven as well as light-driven catalytic processes. Our particular emphasis is on chemistry relevant to sustainable energy cycles.”

This research was supported in part by the DOE Office of Science through Berkeley Lab’s Helios Solar Energy Research Center, and in part by a grant from the National science Foundation.

Berkeley Lab is a U.S. Department of Energy national laboratory located in Berkeley, California. It conducts unclassified scientific research and is managed by the University of California. Visit our website at http://www.lbl.gov.

Additional Information

For more about the research of Christopher Chang, visit the Website at http://www.cchem.berkeley.edu/cjcgrp/

For more about the research of Jeffrey Long, visit the Website at http://alchemy.cchem.berkeley.edu/

Ceramic Fuel Cells Limited (AIM/ASX: CFU) – a leading developer of high efficiency and low emission electricity generation units for homes and other buildings – has received a conditional order for 30 BlueGen gas-to-electricity generators from the Victorian Government’s Office of Housing.

The Office of Housing will install the units in public housing properties in metropolitan Melbourne and regional Victoria. The project will demonstrate the operation of the units and the benefits to tenants, via the generation of low emission power and hot water for the home.

The Victorian Government announced the $1.35 million project on Friday 30 April as part of its Jobs for the Future Economy: Green Jobs Action Plan. The funding for the Green Jobs package, including the purchase of the BlueGen units, is conditional on the Victorian Parliament approving changes to the landfill levies proposed by the Government. The project is also conditional on the Office of Housing and Ceramic Fuel Cells jointly agreeing a model for the delivery of future BlueGen maintenance services. Provided these conditions are met, the 30 BlueGen units would be installed from late 2010 to early 2011, for an initial two-year project period.

BlueGen units generate electricity in the home at almost three times the efficiency of current Victorian coal-fired electricity generators, cutting energy bills and reducing carbon emissions by up to two-thirds.

About the size of a dishwasher, BlueGen uses fuel cell technology to convert natural gas into electricity. Over a year, each BlueGen can produce twice the electricity needed to power an average Victorian home – the excess power can be exported to the power grid. BlueGen also produces enough heat to meet the average home’s daily needs for hot water.

“We are delighted with the Victorian Government’s significant order for our BlueGen units and we look forward to deploying the units across the state,” said Ceramic Fuel Cells managing director Brendan Dow. “We are confident the Victorian Government will become an important strategic customer of Ceramic Fuel Cells, and that their involvement will assist with building momentum for the take-up of our units, both in Australia and overseas.

“The Federal Government recently suggested that Australia will need to invest at least $100 billion in electricity infrastructure during the next decade in order to meet growing demand for electricity and replace ageing infrastructure. Under the current system of centralised electricity production and distribution, the primary reason for increases in electricity prices is the cost of power production and distribution infrastructure.

“A smarter alternative, one that is gaining traction particularly in Europe, is distributed generation – the creation of power close to where it is used. A network of highly efficient gas-powered electricity generators installed in homes, offices, buildings and factories is significantly less expensive because it dramatically reduces reliance on large capital cost infrastructure.”

Announcing the project, Victorian Housing Minister Richard Wynne said “The truly exciting thing about BlueGen is that it is highly energy efficient and produces very low levels of greenhouse gases. That’s not only a win for the environment, but also a win for public housing tenants through lower gas and electricity bills.”

Ceramic Fuel Cells has achieved electrical efficiency of 60 percent, far higher than any other technology in the rapidly expanding global market for small scale power and heating generators. When heat is recovered from the electricity production process, total efficiency is up to 85 percent – more than twice as efficient as the average among current Australian power stations.

Ceramic Fuel Cells is continuing to build its order book for BlueGen units from major utilities and other foundation customers in Europe, Japan and Australia. Ceramic Fuel Cells is also installing BlueGen units with VicUrban in Melbourne and Energy Australia in Sydney.

Using the same fuel cell technology, Ceramic Fuel Cells is also developing fully integrated power and heating products with leading energy companies E.ON UK in the United Kingdom, GdF Suez in France and EWE in Germany.

Fuel Cell Today, the leading market intelligence provider for the fuel cell industry, has published its latest Legislation Review. The new report is the first of Fuel Cell Today’s half-yearly reviews, covering legislative and policy developments worldwide.

The latest review focuses on the outcome of COP15; the UK’s adoption of a feed-in tariff; the prospects for the US Department of Energy’s hydrogen programme and for climate change legislation in the US. It also contains a detailed review of recent funding and policy announcements in Japan, including developments in the large-scale residential fuel cell demonstration programme (EneFarm) and prospects for similar future activities in the area of SOFC. It also reviews recent policy developments in Korea including those on Korean fuel cell job creation.

Future editions of the half-yearly Legislation Review will continue to focus on the main markets for fuel cells including the North American, Japanese, and European super-regions, analysing developments by national governments, local and US State governments, and groupings of nation-states (such as the European Union).

To access the new report, see http://www.fuelcelltoday.com/online/survey?survey=2010-04/2010-April-Legislation-Review