While the “hydrogen economy” has been a promise for decades now, it's only lately that fuel cells have begun entering the commercial marketplace at a rapid clip. They are showing up in everything from cars to data centers and even supermarkets.
One of the remaining drawbacks to hydrogen fuels cells, though, was the fact that you still needed a process that required electricity to produce the hydrogen to power the fuel cell. Researchers at Penn State University may have solved that problem using – of all things – bacteria.
The new process, called microbial electrolysis cell (MEC), could produce fuel-cells that are essentially self-powered and therefore limitless in their ability to produce clean, emissions-free energy, reports the BBC.
“There are bacteria that occur naturally in the environment that are able to release electrons outside of the cell, so they can actually produce electricity as they are breaking down organic matter,” said the study's co-author, Bruce Logan. “We use those microbes, particularly inside something called a microbial fuel cell (MFC), to generate electrical power. We can also use them in this device, where they need a little extra power to make hydrogen gas. What that means is that they produce this electrical current, which are electrons, they release protons in the water and these combine with electrons.”...Read More
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