Washington, Aug 31 (ANI): A team of USC scientists has developed a robust, efficient method of using hydrogen as a fuel source.
Hydrogen makes a great fuel but because it is gas, it can only be stored in high pressure or cryogenic tanks. A possible solution is to store hydrogen in a safe chemical form.
"In a vehicle with a tank full of hydrogen, if you got into a wreck, you'd have a problem," Travis Williams, assistant professor of chemistry at the USC Dornsife College, said.
Earlier this year, Williams and his team figured out a way to release hydrogen from an innocuous chemical material - a nitrogen-boron complex, ammonia borane - that can be stored as a stable solid.
Now the team has developed a catalyst system that releases enough hydrogen from its storage in ammonia borane to make it usable as a fuel source.
Moreover, the system is air-stable and re-usable, unlike other systems for hydrogen storage on boron and metal hydrides.
"Ours is the first game in town for reusable, air stabile ammonia borane dehydrogenation," Williams said, adding that the USC Stevens Institute is in the process of patenting the system.
"The system is sufficiently lightweight and efficient to have potential fuel applications ranging from motor-driven cycles to small aircraft," he stated.
The research was published this month in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. (ANI)
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