A process for extracting hydrogen from a liquid fuel could remove one of the biggest hurdles to a 'hydrogen economy', its discoverers say. They have developed a catalyst that harvests the gas from methanol, a liquid fuel that — unlike hydrogen itself — can be easily transported and stored.
Matthias Beller, a chemical engineer at the University of Rostock in Germany, and his colleagues hope that methanol might one day be sluiced through pipelines and poured into tankers, before chemical reactions convert the liquid back to hydrogen where it is needed — for example to provide power to off-grid villages, or run cars or mobile devices.
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