Good afternoon. My name is Rosalind but for
the purpose of explaining the context of my
research I want you to think of me as a molecule
of water, with my body an oxygen atom and
my two hydrogen atom shoes. Now, if I get
given a lot of energy I'm going to split into
my constituent parts -- I'm going to form
an oxygen ion and two hydrogen ions that I'm
then going to discard carelessly. However
if this reaction occurs with the energy provided
by electricity its called electrolysis. The
most exciting thing about electrolysis is
that it can also be done backwards, so you
can take the two hydrogen ions and the oxygen
ion and combine them to form water and electricity.
Now, when you put these two reactions together,
you have a circle, you start with water and
electricity, you form hydrogen and oxygen
and then you can go backwards and form water
and electricity again.
Now you might think why on earth is she talking
about this, why is she going round in circles?
Well, actually, this can prove to be quite
a helpful reaction. If you start with water
and take your electricity from renewable energy
sources such as wind or solar when its windy
or sunny then you can form hydrogen which
you can then store and then later, when its
dark, or not very windy, you can use the hydrogen
and the oxygen and combine it to produce electricity
which you can then use to power your homes
or cars. Whatever you like. The problem with
this, and the reason we are not already doing
this, is the hydrogen. When us water molecules
carelessly discard our hydrogen shoes they
like to be kept as far away from each other
as possible like the picture to your left.
To get these hydrogen molecules closer together,
and therefore store them in a smaller space,
you need to use a lot of energy to compress
them, to squeeze them closer together.
However my research looks into compounds that
are called metal hydrides and they look like
the system on the right. Now, these metals
look quite a lot like a shoe rack so the metal
ions are spaced evenly and the hydrogen atoms
just slot neatly into the gaps. And this means
you can fit a lot more hydrogen into the same
space. However - and yes there is a however
- these metal ions are heavy and they add
weight to the system and that's not ideal
if you want to carry the hydrogen with you
in a car or another moving vehicle. So my
research look at light metals, trying to make
these show racks lighter so we can take them
with us wherever we go. And this means we
can store sunshine and use it to power our
future. Thank you for listening.
