Silicon Fuel: A hydrogen storage material

Considerable effort is focused on developing alternative approaches to generating and storing energy to reduce the world's reliance on fossil fuels. Hydrogen offers one such alternative, which is zero-emission at the point of use when used to supply a fuel cell to generate electricity. However, the availability of hydrogen by methods that are both cost-effective and environmentally friendly remains a significant challenge. The formulation presented in this work, which we call Silicon Fuel, contains 90% silicon and can generate high hydrogen yields of 70% or more in just a few minutes. This means that the dry material effectively has a hydrogen content of at least 9 wt% and a realistic specific energy of at least 1.5 kWh/kg if the hydrogen supplies a fuel cell with 50% efficiency. As the hydrogen can be generated in a commercially useful time frame, it is suitable for applications such as automotive refuelling, where consumers expect to be able to refuel their vehicle within a few minutes. (C) 2020 Hydrogen Energy Publications LLC. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

The article introduces a formulation called Silicon Fuel, which contains 90% silicon and can generate high hydrogen yields of 70% or more in a short period of time. This dry material has a high specific energy and can be quickly commercialized for applications like quick refueling for vehicles.