CleanBeta

Hydrogen Breakthrough Could Lead to Cars of the Future

Researchers have demonstrated an atomistic mechanism of hydrogen release in magnesium nanoparticles – a potential hydrogen storage material.

Cars of the future will need to combine liquid fuel and a combustion engine to combat the twin challenges presented by global warming and peak oil. Fuel cells can run on hydrogen gas, which produces energy through chemical reactions with oxygen in the fuel cell. Hydrogen storage, or rather storing hydrogen gas, in compact ways is the key problem complicating the commercialization of hydrogen cars.

Previous research has developed metal powders that can absorb hydrogen –  which create so-called metal hydrides — very efficiently. On the other hand, scientists have not yet determined how to extract the hydrogen from the metal hydrides when it needs to be used as fuel.

With the help of computer simulations of magnesium clusters at the quantum mechanical level, the breakthrough discovery announced today shows at the atomic scale how catalysts can pull hydrogen from the material and why only a small amount of catalysts are necessary to improve the hydrogen release. The extensive simulations were performed at Uppsala University’s Multidisciplinary Center for Advanced Computational Science. The findings appeared in online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.