The energy sector all around the world is rapidly moving towards renewable energy technologies. There have been significant efforts by many established companies to come up with alternative fuels to reverse the damage to our planet and to minimize the greenhouse gas emissions. One significant invention to that end is the floating solar rig made by Columbia University.
The floating solar rig made by a team of engineers from the Columbia University harvests hydrogen fuel from seawater. The solar fuels capture solar energy and use it to power the technology on the rig to extract hydrogen from the seawater.
The floating solar rig does not use a membrane like other similar technologies. Instead, it uses an asymmetrical mess. An electrode is coated with a catalyst on one side and collects bubbles of both hydrogen and oxygen. Hydrogen is a highly researched energy source and has the potential to provide clean power to much of the technology we use every day.
Currently, a number of domestic resources can produce hydrogen from other forms of renewable energy and nuclear energy. We hear about wind and solar energy when it comes to renewables, but hydrogen is a viable option in helping to decrease the dependency on oil and other fuels that lead to the emission of greenhouse gases.
Hydrogen is one of the most abundant elements in the Earth’s crust, but scientists have only recently discovered how to harness it. Azo Cleantech explains the whole situation simply, “Hydrogen is considered as a secondary source of energy, commonly referred to as an energy carrier. Energy carriers are used to move, store and deliver energy in a form that can be easily used. Electricity is the most well-known example of an energy carrier”.
You can watch a video that shows how hydrogen fuel is made here:
Once we can harness hydrogen with relative ease, it will be very easy to manage and will serve as a great fuel for everyday consumption. Azo Cleantech says, “Hydrogen as an important energy carrier in the future has a number of advantages. For example, a large volume of hydrogen can be easily stored in a number of different ways. Hydrogen is also considered as a high efficiency, a low polluting fuel that can be used for transportation, heating, and power generation in places where it is difficult to use electricity”.
The most significant problem today is that hydrogen is extremely expensive. But, with inventions like the floating solar rig, it will one day hopefully be more scalable and economical.
