Can hydrogen be produced from seawater? The standard method requires water to be purified, which is expensive to do and adds complexity to the device. David Krause at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Stanford University describes new research there that uses electrolysis and a double membrane directly on the seawater to separate out the chloride and isolate the hydrogen and hydroxides. The system operates without generating toxic … [Read more...]
Nanochemistry breakthrough could lift energy density of batteries by factor six
Finding new ways for batteries to increase the charge they can store will lift their energy density. Researchers at Stanford University have developed an alkali metal-chlorine battery that stores six times the charge of today’s commercially available lithium-ion batteries. Until this breakthrough, a high-performance rechargeable sodium-chlorine or lithium-chlorine battery has been impractical because chlorine is too reactive to convert back to an … [Read more...]