Climate Change: ‘Bath Sponge’ Breakthrough Could Boost Cleaner Cars
This article, published on BBC News by Matt McGrath on April 18, 2020, discussed an exciting new aluminum-based material developed to enhance hydrogen-powered car efficiency. Similar to the function of a bath sponge, the highly porous material has the ability to hold and release large amounts of hydrogen gas at lower pressure and at lower costs. Utilizing renewable energy to produce this zero emissions power source, hydrogen gas has the potential to be the greenest fuel on the current market.
Upon analysis of this article, it proved to be effective at simplifying a seemingly complicated scientific subject into writing and diagrams that were more accessible to the average BBC reader. In particular, the inclusion of an illustration describing how hydrogen fuel cells work. It was a comprehensible depiction of the process underlying the premise of the article with color coding and labeling. Additionally, the metaphor of the bath sponge allows for a mental image about the intricacies that could be misunderstood with writing alone.
From the discussion with my classmates, it seemed that they agreed with the clarity of this article. One of my peers noticed that even the placement of the fuel cell diagram was intentional and worked effectively in the article. I believe this article was an insightful introduction to this new area of research in the automobile industry. It will be interesting to see what comes next for this realm of alternative fuels, and I am looking forward to reading more articles on this topic.
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