Douglas Rapp in his laboratory.

Photo-Enhanced Diffusion of Hydrogen in Glass Microspheres

Dr. James Shelby and Douglas Rapp have developed a method of retrieving hydrogen stored in hollow glass microspheres through photo-enhanced diffusion. Their research at Alfred, funded by CEER, opens up safe and inexpensive possibilities for storing and transporting hydrogen gas. Emissions from the combustion of gasoline in automobile engines are a major source of air pollution. A number of possible replacements for the internal combustion engine are under intense study. The most favorable at present is the use of fuel cells to produce electricity from hydrogen. The only byproduct of this method is water. Current hydrogen technology, however, is limited by the lack of an efficient way to store and transport hydrogen gas in a vehicle.

It has been known for decades that hydrogen can be safely stored in hollow glass microspheres. The amount of hydrogen in each individual microsphere is very small, preventing the possibility of explosions by improper handling or during accidents. Development of a commercial process has heretofore been prevented by the lack of an easy method for removing the hydrogen from the microspheres as needed for fuel. Shelby and Rapp have potentially solved this problem through photo-enhanced diffusion.

Shelby and Rapp's research shows that doping glasses with certain additives results in a glass that will almost instantaneously change the rate of hydrogen diffusion. They have shown that the release of hydrogen from glass can be controlled by simply turning a light on and off. The response of the glass is almost instantaneous. This discovery may lead to the widespread use of hollow glass microspheres for the storage and transport of hydrogen.

Shelby and Rapp presented their research at the American Ceramics Society Fall Glass and Optical Materials Division Meeting held October 12-15th in Corning, NY and at the 16th University Conf. on Glass Science: Glasses for High Technology, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY, Aug. 13-15, 2003. Proceedings of this conference will be published as a special issue of J. Non-Cryst. Solids. For more information about the research, visit Shelby and Rapp's research webpage, http://ceer.alfred.edu/Research/glassspheres.html.

CEER is funded in large part by the United States Environmental Protection Agency.

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