Iron as an inexpensive storage medium for hydrogen

Chemical process is similar to charging a battery

02-Sep-2024 - Researchers at ETH Zurich are using iron to store hydrogen safely and for long periods. In the future, this technology could be used for seasonal energy storage. Photovoltaics are set to meet over 40 percent of Switzerland’s electricity needs by 2050. But solar power isn’t always available when ...

Light green hydrogen will do

“It would be counterproductive to aim for complete decarbonisation, as the excessive costs could slow down the energy transition”

04-Jul-2024 - Whether sustainably produced hydrogen needs to be 100 percent green is currently under debate. Using the production of ammonia and artificial fertiliser as examples, researchers have calculated that "nearly sustainable" hydrogen would be better in the end. There’s a role for sustainably produced ...

Producing fertiliser without carbon emissions

Fighting climate change and food security

28-Dec-2022 - Researchers at ETH Zurich and the Carnegie Institution for Science have shown how nitrogen fertiliser could be produced more sustainably. This is necessary not only to protect the climate, but also to reduce dependence on imported natural gas and to increase food security. Intensive agriculture ...

New photocatalyst made from an aerogel for more efficient hydrogen production

Airy and efficient

02-Dec-2021 - Researchers at ETH Zurich have developed a new photocatalyst made from an aerogel that could enable more efficient hydrogen production. The key is sophisticated pretreatment of the material. Aerogels are extraordinary materials that have set Guinness World Records more than a dozen times, ...

Decoding the way catalysts work

Good catalytic performance is driven chiefly by processes that occur on the surface of the catalyst – and not electrochemical processes

20-Nov-2020 - Splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen is an important chemical reaction, especially considering that the use of hydrogen as an energy source in sustainable mobility in the future. An international research team has now decoded how one of the catalysts used in this reaction works. Hydrogen is a ...

New solar mini-refinery

Carbon-neutral fuel made from sunlight and air: Two spin-offs already founded

17-Jun-2019 - Researchers from ETH Zurich have developed a novel technology that produces liquid hydrocarbon fuels exclusively from sunlight and air. For the first time worldwide they demonstrate the entire thermochemical process chain under real field conditions. The new solar mini-refinery is located on the ...

Recycling carbon dioxide from the ocean

Floating power plants

11-Jun-2019 - Paper, tin cans, glass - the world recycles as much as possible. So why not declare the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2) a recycling product as well? Liquid fuels based on carbon will continue to play an important role in the future - despite international efforts to reduce them. So it seems ...

When nuclei catch up with electrons

18-Apr-2018 - Understanding the dynamics of quantum-mechanical systems on their natural time scale is the main goal in attosecond science. Among the most interesting systems to investigate are molecules, which have a very high degree of complexity, in particular when compared to atomic systems. So far, the few ...

Nanotechnology enables new insights into chemical reactions

Researchers have developed a novel method which may speed up the search for optimal catalytic processes

09-Jan-2017 - Eighty percent of all products in the chemical industry are manufactured using catalytic processes. Catalysis is also indispensable in energy conversion and storage and the treatment of exhaust gases. Reactions between substances are triggered or accelerated by an additional substance, the ...

Molecules on a string, and why size isn't the only thing that matters for data storage

Physicists get a grip on slippery molecules, and learn how the shape of nanoscopic magnetic islands affect data storage

16-Sep-2009 - Molecules of hydrogen are difficult to steer with electric fields because of the symmetrical way that charges are distributed within them. But now researchers at ETH Zurich have found a clever technique to get a grip on the molecules. Their findings are reported in Physical Review Letters and ...