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Weed Killer is the New Fuel Cell Power |
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Written by Sabrina Deparine
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Tuesday, 16 February 2010 10:57 |
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Last Updated on Tuesday, 16 February 2010 13:31 |
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Page views: 469 |
Electricity can now be derived from glucose and other carbohydrates. Researchers at Brigham Young University in Britain are able to develop a fuel cell that can harvest electricity from sugar compounds. This is done using a weed killer as a catalyst.
 Carbohydrates are actually very rich in energy but they still need a catalyst to extract the electrons from glucose and to transfer them to an electrode. Surprisingly, a common weed killer has all the properties required for the catalyst.
A common herbicide was used to catalyze the carbohydrate-based fuel cell. As such, this new technology is cheaper than the conventional hydrogen-based fuel cells. Hydrogen-base fuel cells require platinum as catalyst.
The experiments conducted by the team gave a 29% conversion rate. This is equivalent to the transfer of seven out of 24 available electrons per glucose molecule. Further developments in the study revealed that the researchers were able to double the performance power of the new glucose-based fuel cell. To date, the team is thinking of ways to boost their power output and to ramp up the design of the new fuel cell.
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