Posted on 07/31/2008 6:17:35 PM PDT by Flavius
It sounds almost too good to be true — but chemists believe they have made a key breakthrough that would allow them to mimic photosynthesis and solve the world’s energy crisis.
Daniel Nocera and Matthew Kanan at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge have discovered a simple, inexpensive system that can help to split water to produce oxygen and hydrogen gas. The process could, they suggest, be powered by solar photovoltaic cells. electrolysisA snapshot showing the new, efficient oxygen catalyst in action in Dan Nocera's laboratory at MIT.MIT/NSF
This would give a crucial boost to solar power’s potential to replace fossil fuels, because it adds the ability to both trap and then store the Sun’s energy in a readily accessible form.
(Excerpt) Read more at nature.com ...
I hope so. If this thing pans out, inexpensive hydrogen should replace our dependence on foreign oil.
An invention is touted each week to save us from “dirty oil and coal”. I wouldn’t put much stock in it.
Oh common you crazy man...
this article had everything MIT, scientist, and solar all in one paragraph
its gold Jerry gold
“It sounds ALMOST too good to be true — but chemists BELIEVE they have made a key breakthrough “
Where’s the “not this shite again” guy?
How do you make plastics and other petroleum products out of hydrogen and oxygen?
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/Hydroxy/
and
http://www.free-energy-info.co.uk/
Check out the Smack Booster
Who cares? It sounds great!
Just hoping it’s better than “cold fusion”......
Soybeans.
Your new invention killed! It totally killed!
I don’t know, not saying it is true but this isn’t some guy in a garage in Ohio claiming he has just built a 200 mpg car, or the various announcements of what carbon nano-tubes can do.
Hydrogen is a fine fuel for things like the space shuttle but for cars there is a fairly annoying problem of energy density.
Hydrogen does not have nearly the BTU potential per pound as gasoline.
Then there is the problem of space. Hydrogen must be stored under pressure in a cylinder or as a cryogenic fluid. There is a hi-tech idea of hydrated salts but that is expensive requires heat to drive off the hydrogen which lowers the efficiency of the system.
Regardless of which of these methods you use you can not match the energy carrying capacity in a car using gasoline if you are using hydrogen which means you can not match the driving range. In other words if you are taking a trip in a hydrogen car you will make more pit stops than a person driving the same car fueled by gasoline.
Some people may argue but I also do not consider hydrogen to be as safe as gasoline. But strictly speaking the flash point of hydrogen is considerably lower than gasoline.
Forget it. It may take ten years.
“Hydrogen does not have nearly the BTU potential per pound as gasoline.”
Much worse per cubic foot, too.
Let’s see if i understand what the breakthrough is...
1. they use photovoltaic cells to generate low voltage electricity (nothing new here)
2. they use that electricity to separate H and O in water that has their NEW catalyst. The catalyst supposedly allows the hydrolysis to take place at lower voltages than would otherwise be possible. This is their BIG BREAKTHROUGH.
3. The little research that I’ve done indicates that the minimum voltage needed for hydrolysis (without any catalysts) is about 1.24V. A typical solar cell generates .55V.
4. So, why can’t you stick 3 solar cells in series and accomplish the same thing without the catalyst?
Question - what am I missing??
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