Technology for the future

1998/02/01 Kaltzada, Pili - Elhuyar Zientziaren Komunikazioa Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Enpresa

Toribio Fernández: Indeed, electrochemistry is the oldest branch of chemistry, but the work we are going to do in this field can have a decisive influence in the future. Until now electrochemistry has been considered a scrub science based on a simple, almost purely observational experience, but in the future it will be seen to be a real science.

Electrochemistry encompasses almost all areas of the technological challenge of the future, as it will turn the key to imitate nature. For example, living beings recover almost entirely our energy capacity to be reused in mechanical processes; electrochemistry must master these mechanisms, for example, in order to make the fuel to be used in space flights, in order to obtain a fuel that oxygen and hydrogen in drinking water and electricity at a stable temperature.

Or the construction of combustion batteries that multiply the performance of cars, that is, that allow the reuse of energy released by fossil fuels. Smart windows for smart buildings are already patented in the laboratory of Electrochemistry, artificial muscles... All this seemed to us sci-fi until recently, but it is now available.

Soon we will also have pollution-free batteries and biodegradable batteries. They are challenges of the future, but at present we are already working in that direction, the mechanisms that correspond to the catalyst remain unknown and, therefore, there we will have to go first. In any case, I have no doubt that in a few years we will know much more.