Scientists say their device can pull water from the air to create green hydrogen
- The device can be used in an arid environment where relative humidity is as low as 4 per cent – meaning liquid water isn’t needed, according to international team
- It uses porous materials soaked in electrolytes to absorb moisture then splits the water into hydrogen and oxygen, and it can be powered by excess renewable energy
An international team of scientists say they have found a new way to extract water from bone-dry air to produce hydrogen, which they call “the ultimate clean energy”.
The researchers said the device could be used in an arid environment where relative humidity was as low as 4 per cent – meaning green hydrogen could potentially be created without using liquid water.
Average relative humidity is around 20 per cent, for example, in the Sahel desert in Africa and Uluru in the Central Australian desert.
“Moisture in the air can directly be used for hydrogen production via electrolysis, owing to its universal availability and natural inexhaustibility,” the researchers wrote in a paper published in peer-reviewed journal Nature Communications on Tuesday.
The team of chemical engineers – from the University of Melbourne, University of Manchester and Chinese Academy of Sciences – said there were 13 trillion tonnes of water in the air at any moment.
