producing hydrogen just got more promising

The UCLA device is a hybrid unit that combines a supercapacitor with a hydrogen fuel cell, and runs the whole shebang on solar power. Along with the usual positive and negative electrodes, the device has a third electrode that can either store energy electrically or use it to split water into its constituent hydrogen and oxygen atoms – a process called water electrolysis. To make the electrodes as efficient as possible, the team maximized the amount of surface area that comes into contact with water, right down to the nanoscale. That increases the amount of hydrogen the system can produce, as well as how much energy the supercapacitor can store. Read more here; .....https://newatlas.com/solar-hydrogen-electricity-device/52329/

Liquid metal feeds Stanford's new high-voltage flow battery

First and foremost, the fluid used as the negative side of the battery is an alloy of sodium and potassium. This mixture remains a liquid metal at room temperature, and theoretically packs at least 10 times the energy density of other fluids previously suggested for the role. On the positive side of the cell, the team tested four different water-based liquids. The second new material is in the membrane used inside the cell. The team made a ceramic membrane out of potassium and aluminum oxide, which keeps the positive and negative fluids separate while still allowing current to flow between them. The combination of the new anolyte and the new membrane, reportedly produces twice the maximum voltage of other flow batteries, which means a better overall energy density and lower production cost. The prototype the team developed also proved its stability over thousands of hours of operation. full story is here; https://newatlas.com/liquid-metal-flow-battery/55545/