(July 24, 2015) The
development of affordable and efficient ceramic fuel cells that could be used
to power homes, the culmination of five years worth of work by Colorado School
of Mines researchers, is featured in the July 23 issue of Science magazine.
The research, led by Mines Professor Ryan O’Hayre, would
enable more efficient use of natural gas for power generation through the use
of fuel cells that convert the chemical energy of a fuel source into electrical
energy close to where it is used.
The reliable, environmentally friendly fuel source
alternative would help guarantee greater energy security while distributed
generation technologies would lead to reduced energy costs for consumers.
“Our work demonstrates a proton-conducting ceramic fuel cell
that generates electricity off of either hydrogen or methane fuel and runs at
much lower temperatures that conventional ceramic fuel cells,” said O’Hayre.
“We achieved this advance by developing a new air electrode for our fuel cell
that is highly active even at lower temperatures because it is a
triple-conducting electrode (it conducts electron holes, oxygen ions, and
protons all at the same time) and we applied a relatively new fabrication
method that greatly reduces the complexity and cost for the fuel cell
fabrication.”