Hydrogen from algae? Scientists power RC car with aquatic organism

“The fact scientists were able to power our RC car with green algae has stunned everyone in our office,” said Kamil Jelinek, CEO of Horizon Educational. “Usually our products are used to introduce students to how hydrogen is produced, stored and used in a hands-on and interactive way. This new and exciting application has motivated us to create learning material that breaks down this groundbreaking research for our students.”

The study achieved hydrogen production by engineering the green algae species, Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, penetrating the algae’s cells and injecting them with carbon nanofibers. These carbon nanofibers (150 times smaller than a grain of sand) transformed the algae’s cells into power generation systems, capable of generating enough hydrogen to run the fuel cell electric car.

Current ways of generating fuel from solar power rely on expensive semiconductors, making the systems too expensive to be used at scale. The research team, led by Professor Hyo Jin Gwon, was able to demonstrate that the green algae could generate hydrogen on its own for over 50 days, and the production system had very low costs being scalable and efficient in terms of space.

This method of producing hydrogen fuel is not only 'green', generating no CO₂ emissions, but it can also grow in capacity at a steady rate when the number of algae is increased. This means that while the system used by the scientists could power the H-Racer 2.0, on a larger scale it has the potential to power industrial-scale solar to hydrogen generation systems, transforming how the global supply of hydrogen is produced.

Read the article online at: https://www.globalhydrogenreview.com/hydrogen/08112023/hydrogen-from-algae-scientists-power-rc-car-with-aquatic-organism/