Chemists Create Fuel Cell With Household Products

College chemists have said he has created a fuel cell that produce electricity from common household products.

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah – College chemists have said he has created a fuel cell that produce electricity from common household products.

Gerald Watt, a Brigham Young University professor of chemistry, reported that an over-the-counter weedkiller can excite electrons in an electrode from carbohydrates in sugar as its fuel.

For a perspective on the low cost of carbohydrate-based fuel cells, he noted that General Moters is developing a hydroden-based fuel cell using platinum as a catalyst.

Still, the BYU team is seeking ways to increase the power density since its initial experiments could only yield a 29-percent conversion rate, the report said.

The goal is to have a fuel cell that is “more commercially attractive,” noted team member Dean Wheeler.

The BYU discovery comes two years after Japanese scientists said that they had created a similar device using sunlight to convert glucose into hydrogen power.

Watt’s report is found in the August issue of the Journal of the Electrochemical Society.