Nanomaterial to store ‘future fuel’
Hydrogen, considered a major fuel of the future, could be used to power buildings, portable electronics and vehicles. Image: davidf/iStockphoto For the first time, engineers at the University of New South Wales have demonstrated that hydrogen can be released and reabsorbed from a promising storage material, overcoming a major hurdle to its use as an alternative fuel source. Researchers from the Materials Energy Research Laboratory in nanoscale (MERLin) at UNSW have synthesised nanoparticles of a commonly overlooked chemical compound called sodium borohydride and encased these inside nickel shells. Their unique "core-shell" nanostructure has demonstrated remarkable hydrogen storage properties, including the release of energy at much lower temperatures than previously observed. “No one has ever tried to synthesise these particles at the nanoscale because they thought it was too difficult, and couldn’t be done. We’re the first to do so, and demonstrate that energy in the form of hydrogen can be stored with sodium borohydride...