Solar Power

A research has been carried out to make cheap solar power out of rust which is found on electrodes. Rust simply did not have electrical properties to compete. The only time anyone thought about rust is how to get rid of it. But over the past years, the spotlight has been wavering back to a substance that contrary to popular belief may actually be something of a surprise material. Though iron oxide cannot spin the sun’s energy into electricity but it can certainly help amass it. Humble flakes of rust might be the way around one of the most obdurate problems plaguing solar power-the night.

Every day, the sun bathes our planet in more energy than we can hope to consume in a year. But harvesting it is not trouble-free Ways to store excess energy so it can be used when the sun is not shining are immediately needed. In part because it can only be used at the moment it is generated.

A far better way to store solar energy is by using it to make hydrogen. The elements’ chemical bonds pack a huge punch, storing as much as 170 times the energy per kilogram as standard lithium ion batteries. Hydrogen is adaptable: by putting in a fuel cell combined with oxygen it can produce electricity; by combining with carbon monoxide it becomes methanol biofuel; by storing properly it can be burned like gas fuel. The sun’s photons can simply be used to electrolyse water and make hydrogen.

Rust is non-toxic, dirt cheap, profuse to the point of ubiquity and steady as well. It can last up to a year – some times more than that. It has the right physical properties to electrolyse water but it has to be aided. Iron oxide itself cannot send enough electrons out to the edge, where they would be more useful. It needs a boot. One way to do so is to attain additional solar power from a device called tandem cell. A thin layer of titanium diaoxide was dyed to boost its photon absorption, created a dye-sensitised solar cell. It was a simple and cheap way to generate an electric current. The resulting current was fed into the rust layer below, which was able to push the correct electrons out to electrolyse the water. The layer of rust was made thin enough to allow the electrons escape. To abet the electrons’ escape, nanorust using cloud deposition is created which involves spraying a mist of iron solution onto a surface. This deposition method causes the iron oxide to grow into forests of microscopic cauliflower-shaped “trees” creating the kind of fractal surface area that allows the electrons to make their getaway. A rust layer has to be thin as well as thick which is resolved by turning to quantum physics. The real genius of rust is that it is cheap. The iron ‘cauliflower’ mixture could be coated onto something akin to wallpaper, printing out sheets of solar cells, generating hydrogen everywhere and anywhere.

Once water splits it effectively creates a bomb, because hydrogen and oxygen can react explosively. Separating two gases is straightforward. A membrane attracts oxygen and hydrogen differentially, letting them bubble up separately. Low grade waste water is designed to eat the oxygen. Instead of becoming a gas, it reacts with the organic compounds in the water, leaving the hydrogen to bubble safely off to the storage link.

Storage of solar energy by making hydrogen has its own problems. The gas is difficult to keep confined without relying on expensive, tough materials that won’t decay – or detonate Nanoscale sodium borohydride is used for storage. Wherever sunlight is plentiful and energy infrastructure deficient the tandem cell-and-iron oxide can be arranged which makes off-grid energy solutions. These devices can be placed onto roofs where hydrogen fuel and electricity could be made available without a grid.

A rust cell could function either to make fuel or electricity or both at the same time. It could make electricity during the day during peak electrical demand, but produce fuel instead when demand is not as high.