Sometimes the answer to all of your problems has been staring you in the face the whole time, and if researchers are right, the answer to our energy needs may have been hiding in sunflowers all along. Scientists in the UK may have found the missing piece to a puzzle that has plagued researchers since the 1960s. There are still plenty of questions to be answered in terms of scalability and efficiency, but there is definitely hope.<\/p>\n
It sounds like a concept out of a Dr Seuss <\/em>book, but car engines powered by sunflowers aren’t as far-fetched as they seem. A team of researchers from the University of Leeds is proposing a way to extract hydrogen from sunflower oil to power hydrogen fuel cells<\/strong>. These cells could power anything from laptops to 18-wheelers.<\/p>\n Dr Andrew Moss, a researcher at Leeds, stated that:<\/p>\n “The production of hydrogen from biomass and bio-oils represents a realistic renewable source. This particular process could enable hydrogen to be produced from vegetable-oil-derived materials by either stationary fuel processors or even on-board processors in fuel-cell cars.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Hydrogen power is considered one of the great hopes for renewable energy, as its abundance in nature makes it a popular green alternative to scarce fossil fuels<\/strong>. The possibility that we could replace petrol-powered cars<\/a> with vehicles that are carbon neutral means that this hydrogen has the potential to be a planet saver.<\/p>\n The process that the Leeds team suggests does seem too complex to be fitted under the hood of a car, as it would involve a tank full of sunflower oil<\/strong> and some tricky chemistry. An onboard system that pulls hydrogen out of the oil as you drive is what the researchers have already presented to the American Chemical Society<\/a>.<\/p>\n The concept might have better potential if the sunflower oil were processed at a station and then used to power electric vehicles (EVs), which have become very popular in recent years. However, with cars being powered by everything from methanol to synthetic natural gas, a hydrogen fuel cell that uses bio-oil isn’t impossible.<\/p>\n The process isn’t polished as of yet, and it’s not entirely clean and green<\/strong> either. The chemistry requires catalysts that are carbon-based as well as nickel, but the Leeds team has suggested that the carbon dioxide that the process produces can be absorbed by\u2014you guessed it, sunflowers.<\/p>\n The issue that will affect the scalability of this idea, and price most consumers out of buying a sunflower car, is the cost. Pulling hydrogen from sunflower oil requires some costly materials, including the catalysts and specialized reactors.<\/p>\n With an abundance of alternatives to petrol-powered cars and a plethora of other ways to produce hydrogen in a more cost-effective and scalable<\/strong> way, sunflower power needs some fine-tuning before it becomes a reality. That being said, renewable energy is an industry that requires constant innovation.<\/p>\n Interestingly enough, there are several teams at Leeds working on projects related to renewable energy. The Clean Energy Research Alliance (CERA) is based at the university and works with academics around the world. Currently, they have projects related to wet waste as well as the creation of sustainable micro-grids.<\/p>\n The truth is that it will be some time before we see cars that run on sunflower oil, although some ill-advised drivers have attempted to use it in diesel cars. The real potential lies in the extraction process of pulling hydrogen<\/a> from sunflower oil. Clean energy requires sources that are abundant in nature, and the world isn’t short on sunflowers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Sometimes the answer to all of your problems has been staring you in the face the whole time, and if researchers are right, the answer to our energy needs may have been hiding in sunflowers all along. Scientists in the UK may have found the missing piece to a puzzle that has plagued researchers since … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":4461,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rank_math_focus_keyword":"sunflower,energy,hydrogen,UK","rank_math_title":"","rank_math_description":"A team of researchers have made a discovery that could potentially lead to cars being powered by sunflowers. How does this process work, and is it scalable?","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4438","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-energy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4438","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4438"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4438\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4461"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}How hydrogen is extracted from sunflowers<\/h2>\n
A few carbon hurdles to clear<\/h2>\n
Green machines at Leeds<\/h3>\n
A long way to go<\/h4>\n