Creating fuel out of thin air

You may have missed this announcement towards the end of last year, but an exciting discovery has the potential to completely redefine fuel cell technology.

In 2004, graphene, the world's thinnest, strongest and most impermeable material, was isolated by Professor Andre Geim of Manchester University in the UK. He and his fellow researcher, Konstantin Novoselov, were subsequently awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2010 for their work.

Graphene is only one atom thick, yet 200 times stronger than steel and impermeable to all gases and liquids including hydrogen, the smallest of atoms. This means the material has potential for a range of uses from corrosion-proof coatings through to impassable packaging.

The most recent graphene study tested the impermeable nature of the material. A team at Manchester University, again led by Geim, decided to see whether protons (hydrogen atoms stripped of their electrons) could also be repelled. It turns out that protons easily pass through graphene, particularly at raised temperatures, and if the films were covered in nanoparticles such as platinum, which behaved as a catalyst.

This unexpected result is a boon for fuel cell developments, as graphene could be used in proton-conducting membranes - a critical component of the technology. Fuel cells react oxygen and hydrogen fuel together converting chemical energy into electricity and producing only water. The problem with current methodology is that fuels leak across proton membranes, reducing the cell's efficiency, which could be overcome through the use of graphene.

Graphene membranes can also be used to extract hydrogen from the atmosphere, meaning they could be combined with fuel cells to make mobile electric generators powered by the small amount of available hydrogen ... literally, making fuel out of thin air.

PhD student and co-author of the study Marcelo Lozada-Hidalgo explains the potential: "We are very excited about this result because it opens a whole new area of promising applications for graphene in clean energy harvesting and hydrogen-based technologies."

The study was reported in international weekly science journal Nature.

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