{"id":673,"date":"2008-08-06T22:27:39","date_gmt":"2008-08-06T22:27:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.energyrefuge.com\/blog\/new-material-could-improve-upon-the-fuel-cell\/"},"modified":"2017-09-05T17:54:19","modified_gmt":"2017-09-05T21:54:19","slug":"new-material-could-improve-upon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.energyrefuge.com\/blog\/new-material-could-improve-upon\/","title":{"rendered":"New Material Could Improve Upon The Fuel Cell"},"content":{"rendered":"

Imagine this concept: What if we had access to a material that could improve upon ionic conductivity at room temperature by a factor of some 100 million. Big deal right? Well now apply this concept to fuel economy and you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll realize that there is some serious potential on tap here. Solid oxide fuel cell technology requires ion-conducting materials (solid electrolytes) to allow oxygen ions to travel from the cathode to anode. Here\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the catch- at present, existing materials have not provided atom-scale voids large enough to easily accommodate the path of a conducted ion.<\/p>\n

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Fuel cells are a surprisingly simple concept- the electrical energy created in the flow of ions from cathode to anode can be captured and sent down motors within the vehicle\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s wheels.<\/p>\n

This new material is being called a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153super-lattice\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and has been developed by researchers in Spain. Unlike current fuel cell materials, which have to achieve high temperatures to conduct the flow of ions, this new lattice material will maintain some 100 million times the ionic conductivity near room temperatures. If that doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t sound impressive to you, keep in mind that high temperatures have been one of the major roadblocks for developers of fuel cell technology.<\/p>\n

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