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’ll 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’s the catch- at present, existing materials have not provided atom-scale voids large enough to easily accommodate the path of a conducted ion.
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’s wheels.
This new material is being called a “super-lattice†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’t sound impressive to you, keep in mind that high temperatures have been one of the major roadblocks for developers of fuel cell technology.
This is the second potential fuel cell technology breakthru I have seen this week. I think they will make the grade, get the bugs out of it. I think this because thousands of researchers from college kids to master scientists at big research labs, governmental and private, are working at it. When they try enough things I think they will succeed.