Mimicking Photosynthesis to Make Fuel Cells Affordable and Green
黑料吃瓜 professor Jing Gu's lab is focused on renewable energy.
Chemistry researcher Jing Gu is working on making fuel cell technology affordable and green. Video: Ethan Garcia for 黑料吃瓜. Video Editing: Scott Hargrove
Chemistry researcher and assistant professor Jing Gu, with 黑料吃瓜, is focused on making it both affordable and green, through artificial photosynthesis that mimics the plants to convert solar energy into hydrocarbons that stores energy in chemical bonds.
鈥淗ydrogen is an energy carrier and can even send shuttles into space. It has high energy density and when burned it only creates water as a byproduct, so it鈥檚 clean burning,鈥� Gu said.
In traditional manufacturing methods, hydrogen is produced using high temperature and high pressure, so has been looking at more sustainable ways to generate it, from small and large devices that can be located on site.
The water molecule 鈥� H2O - needs to be split up to extract hydrogen and separate it from oxygen, and she has collaborated with Princeton University to look at extracting it from wastewater sources, because it contains bacteria that can be used to treat the wastewater and generate electricity.
Gu鈥檚 contribution to that research project was a photovoltaic converter device which converts water into hydrogen under solar irradiation. It simulates sunlight using a solar lamp, and the electrode or semiconductor Jing uses after coating it with catalytic materials converts solar lamp energy into hydrogen.
鈥淭he typical solar panel absorbs light from the sun and reflects it back, but there is a lot of lost energy because of the reflection. But if you use silicon based nanomaterials, it can significantly boost efficiency, with very little transmission loss,鈥� Gu said.
