A safe and environmentally friendly power plant, the principle of operation of which will combine the use of solar energy and hydrogen, is being created by scientists of the Faculty of Technology and the Research Institute "Nanotechnology and New Materials" of YURSPU (NPI). A group of researchers led by Associate Professor of the Department of Chemical Technologies, Candidate of Technical Sciences A. B. Kuriganova is working on the project within the framework of the implementation of the RNF grant "New photoelectrochemical devices and technologies for hydrogen energy" for 2020 – 2023.
- Our research is a continuation of the work that we started in the laboratory of Doctor of Chemical Sciences Nina Vladimirovna Smirnova and implemented today within the Competence Center of NTI at IPHF RAS on technologies of new and mobile energy sources. Namely, it is the development of technologies for the creation of components of hydrogen fuel cells, - said Alexandra Borisovna. - In this project, our competencies have been combined, starting from the creation of electro- and photoactive materials and up to the creation of a hydrogen fuel cell power plant.
The first of the three planned stages of work on the project under the grant has now been completed. Young polytechnics face a difficult but extremely interesting task – the creation of a photoelectrochemical power plant based on reversible fuel cells.
- Today, the attention of many researchers is focused on hydrogen fuel cells. This is a key link in a number of studies, such fuel cells process the chemical energy of hydrogen into electrical energy, - says A.B. Kuriganova. – But hydrogen for fuel cells needs to be taken from somewhere. All hydrogen used in the modern world is classified by color, depending on the amount of CO2 emissions that occur when it is produced. And most of this substance at the moment is "brown" and "gray! The extraction of such hydrogen is associated with the production of a large amount of CO2 entering the atmosphere. Our task is to proceed to the production of absolutely pure "green" hydrogen by electrolysis – the decomposition of water into oxygen and hydrogen. At the same time, there are no CO2 emissions into the atmosphere, the ecology does not suffer. But for the operation of the electrolyzer, you also need to take energy somewhere! And within the framework of hydrogen energy, the following technological chain is proposed: a solar panel converts solar energy into electricity, this electricity feeds an electrolyzer, which, in turn, decomposes water into oxygen and hydrogen, which enters the fuel cell, and the fuel cell converts hydrogen into electricity. That is, while three different devices are working as part of the chain: a solar panel, an electrolyzer, a fuel cell. The task of our scientists is to reduce this chain to a single device.
- According to our idea, this will be a power plant that, during the day, under the influence of sunlight, will decompose water into hydrogen and oxygen (that is, work in the electrolyzer mode), and at night, in the fuel cell mode, convert the accumulated hydrogen into electricity. It will be a simple, safe, economical device," says the head of the development team. - We have completed the first stage of research within the framework of this project: we have selected materials that have both photo- and electroactivity. We have also worked out effective methods for the synthesis of these materials, and are currently conducting research on the installation simulating sunlight.
The second planned stage of work is the creation of a design of a single cell of the power plant, the third is the creation of a complete sample of the power plant.
By 2023, when the third year of the grant is completed, scientists plan to proceed to the study of the modes of operation of a photoelectrochemical power plant and its scaling. It is quite possible that their development will become one of the implemented technologies for the production and use of "green" hydrogen.
