Wednesday, November 08, 2006
Producing Hydrogen From Water Through Use of GaN Crystals
Tokyo (Japan), 07 November: Research team from a joint research program of Tokyo University of Science and the Japan Science and Technology Agency have succeeded in producing hydrogen from water through the use of gallium nitride (GaN) crystals for the first time.
Research team from a joint research program of Tokyo University of Science and the Japan Science and Technology Agency have succeeded in producing hydrogen from water through the use of gallium nitride (GaN) crystals for the first time. If commercializable, this technology is expected to lead to the development of fuel cells that run on water and can be used in a wide range of products, from automobiles to computers.
The researchers connected a GaN wafer with platinum using wire, then immersed these in water. When light is applied to the GaN wafer, current flows through the water and causes it to decompose into oxygen and hydrogen through electrolysis. The rate of conversion efficiency, which is the ratio of hydrogen energy to the light energy used, is still 0.5 %. However the researchers improved the efficiency by 1.3 times by introducing the narrower band gap material such as InGaN. "This can be raised to more than 20%," said Kazuhiro Ohkawa, a professor in applied physics department at Tokyo University of Science, who played a leading role in the research. The team plans to continue work on the project to make improvements.
(ResearchSEA)
Research team from a joint research program of Tokyo University of Science and the Japan Science and Technology Agency have succeeded in producing hydrogen from water through the use of gallium nitride (GaN) crystals for the first time. If commercializable, this technology is expected to lead to the development of fuel cells that run on water and can be used in a wide range of products, from automobiles to computers.
The researchers connected a GaN wafer with platinum using wire, then immersed these in water. When light is applied to the GaN wafer, current flows through the water and causes it to decompose into oxygen and hydrogen through electrolysis. The rate of conversion efficiency, which is the ratio of hydrogen energy to the light energy used, is still 0.5 %. However the researchers improved the efficiency by 1.3 times by introducing the narrower band gap material such as InGaN. "This can be raised to more than 20%," said Kazuhiro Ohkawa, a professor in applied physics department at Tokyo University of Science, who played a leading role in the research. The team plans to continue work on the project to make improvements.
(ResearchSEA)
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