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A graphical summary of the xenon-lamp flash photo-pyrolysis method. Credit: EPFL As the world's energy demands increase, so does our consumption of fossil fuels. The result is a massive rise in greenhouse gases emissions with severely adverse environmental effects. To address this, scientists have been searching for alternative, renewable sources of energy. A main candidate is hydrogen produced from organic waste, or biomass, of plants and animals. Biomass also absorbs, removes and stores CO2 from the atmosphere, while biomass decomposition can lead to negative emissions or greenhouse gas removal. But even though biomass heralds a way forward, there is still...

Source:   University Of Missouri-Rolla (http://www.umr.edu) Date:   Posted 7/17/2002 The Sun: A Great Ball Of Iron? For years, scientists have assumed that the sun is an enormous mass of hydrogen. But in a paper presented before the American Astronomical Society, Dr. Oliver Manuel, a professor of nuclear chemistry at UMR, says iron, not hydrogen, is the sun's most abundant element. Manuel claims that hydrogen fusion creates some of the sun's heat, as hydrogen -- the lightest of all elements -- moves to the sun's surface. But most of the heat comes from the core of an exploded supernova...

Five billion years ago, the universe was Earth-less. It remained that way till a vast number of asteroids smashed together and compacted into a giant rocky orb. But that raises a question: The Earth's surface is 70% water, so where'd the liquid come from? A long-standing theory is that a water-rich class of asteroids, called carbonaceous or C-type asteroids, could've pelted the Earth during its creation and brought along water. There's a caveat though, and the C-type asteroids may be only half the story....

Cummins Inc., a century-old maker of truck engines powered by diesel and other fossil fuels, may not seem like the most likely attendee at the UN Climate Conference COP26 in Glasgow, Scotland, but CEO Tom Linebarger was there this week telling industrial partners and customers the company is working to help them shift to low- and no-carbon vehicles powered by batteries and hydrogen. As battery-electric passenger models gain market share in the U.S., Europe and China, attention is shifting to electrifying larger, dirtier commercial vehicles including semi-trucks, construction and mining vehicles, as well as trains, ships and aircraft. Currently, no...

Electrodeposition of Hydrogen Adatoms on Graphene Quan-feng He, Lianhuan Han, Dongping Zhan* , Zhong-Qun Tian State Key Laboratory of Physical Chemistry of Solid Surfaces; Fujian Science & Technology Innovation Laboratory for Energy Materials of China; Engineering Research Centre of Electrochemical Technologies of Ministry of Education; Department of Chemistry, College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering; and Department of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, School of Aerospace Engineering, Xiamen University; Xiamen 361005, China. E-mail: dpzhan@xmu.edu.cn Conductive carbon materials, such as graphite, glassy carbon, carbon black, carbon nanotube, graphene, etc., are used extensively as electrode materials or catalyst carriers in various electrochemical researches because...

For the first time, physicists have been able to directly measure one of the ways exploding stars forge the heaviest elements in the Universe. By probing an accelerated beam of radioactive ions, a team led by physicist Gavin Lotay of the University of Surrey in the UK observed the proton-capture process thought to occur in core-collapse supernovae. Not only have scientists now seen how this happens in detail, the measurements are allowing us to better understand the production and abundances of mysterious isotopes called p-nuclei. On the most basic level, stars can be thought of as the element factories of...

Greenyer: Nickel-hydrogen heat generator continuously working for 7 months A.G. Parkhomov 1 , V.A. Zhigalov 1 , S.N. Zabavin 1 , A.G. Sobolev 2 , T.R. Timerbulatov 1 1 OKL KIT, Moscow, alexparh@mail.ru 2 Lebedev Physical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow A nickel-hydrogen heat generator was created that continuously worked for 225 days with a heat dissipation power exceeding the consumed electricity from 200 to 1000 W (thermal coefficient 1.6 - 3.6). Completion of the work is connected with the exhaustion of fuel energy resource. Total excess energy generation of about 4100 MJ. The fuel used in...

An asthma organization warned against participating in a social media trend that suggests people can treat or prevent COVID-19 by inhaling hydrogen peroxide through a nebulizer. The Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America (AAFA) said the trend was "concerning and dangerous," according to a blog post on its website. "DO NOT put hydrogen peroxide into your nebulizer and breathe it in," the AAFA's blog said. "This is dangerous!"

The typical rocket launch dumps the same amount of CO2 into the atmosphere as one airliner does in the course of a trans-Atlantic crossing If you’re worried about your ‘carbon footprint’ - a concept foisted on the world in 2004 by British Petroleum to persuade people that their own behaviour, and not giant oil companies like BP, is causing the climate problem -- then you definitely should not sign up for a sub-orbital space flight. Besides, you probably can’t afford it ($250,000 pp). Millions of people can afford it, however, and since the Branson/Bezos ‘space race’ last month tickets for...

Report titled ‘How Green is Blue Hydrogen?’ generates buzz, and pushback, as Biden, Congress and Wall Street promote the energy source in path toward zero emissions Clean hydrogen is a fuel the Biden administration believes will be part of the toolkit necessary to propel the U.S. to zero emissions by 2050, not to mention a 50% cut in those emissions as soon as the end of this decade. But a peer-reviewed study out Thursday argues that the fuel’s credentials need reconsideration. Some energy-industry and clean-air analysts raised their own concerns that the study, published in the Energy Science & Engineering...

Green hydrogen is the latest “energy” fad from the global warming warriors. Today’s hydrogen hype proposes using wind and solar energy to produce “green” hydrogen by electrolysis of water. It is mainly hot air. Hydrogen will NEVER be a source of energy. Unlike coal, oil or natural gas, hydrogen rarely occurs naturally – it must be manufactured, and that process consumes far more energy than the hydrogen “fuel” can recover. It's actually an idea that is quite old and discredited. “Hydro-gen” means “born of water,” but there has been a commercial fuel containing hydrogen that was born of coal. (Maybe...

The Energy Department announced on Monday that it was starting an “Earthshots” initiative to reduce the costs of clean energy within a decade — starting with its first goal of reducing the cost of clean hydrogen to $1 per kilogram. The Energy Earthshots Initiative will seek to, within a decade, speed up breakthroughs in affordable and reliable clean energy, according to a department statement. “The Energy Earthshots are an all-hands-on-deck call for innovation, collaboration and acceleration of our clean energy economy by tackling the toughest remaining barriers to quickly deploy emerging clean energy technologies at scale,” Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm...

Washington solidifies goal to end sale of new gas-powered cars by 2030 A bill to promote hydrogen-powered vehicles is now a state law. “Giving residents more access to purchase greener vehicles is one more way we can work together to lower greenhouse gas impacts across the state,” Gov. Inslee said, as he signed the bill. Senator Brad Hawkins sponsored the bill, SB 5000, which creates an eight-year statewide pilot project for the reduction of sales tax on purchases of fuel-cell electric vehicles. “It’s had a long journey through five different committees, but it’s definitely generated a great deal of conversation...

Seawater makes up about 96% of all water on earth, making it a tempting resource to meet the world’s growing need for clean drinking water and carbon-free energy. And scientists already have the technical ability to both desalinate seawater and split it to produce hydrogen, which is in demand as a source of clean energy. But existing methods require multiple steps performed at high temperatures over a lengthy period of time in order to produce a catalyst with the needed efficiency. That requires substantial amounts of energy and drives up the cost. Researchers from the University of Houston have reported...

The Lavo home hydrogen battery is not a battery, it's an electrolysis system, hydrogen storage array and fuel cell power system rolled into one attractive cabinetLavo VIEW 3 IMAGES To get off the grid with home solar, you need to be able to generate energy when the Sun's out, and store it for when it's not. Normally, people do this with lithium battery systems – Tesla's Powerwall 2 is an example. But Australian company Lavo has built a rather spunky (if chunky) cabinet that can sit on the side of your house and store your excess energy as hydrogen. The...

Theory was first postulated in 1930s. Scientists this week announced the landmark detection of elusive particles generated from the fusion of hydrogen in the Sun, confirming a nearly-100-year-old theory about the ways in which many stars generate energy. In a paper published in Nature, a team of researchers called the Borexino Collaboration reported detecting the presence of neutrinos produced during the carbon–nitrogen–oxygen cycle of fusion deep within the Sun. The scientists stated that the energy produced in the CNO cycle represents just a small fraction of the total energy output of our Sun, but “in massive stars, this is the...

Like all stars, our Sun is powered by the fusion of hydrogen into heavier elements. Nuclear fusion is not only what makes stars shine, it is also a primary source of the chemical elements that make the world around us. Much of our understanding of stellar fusion comes from theoretical models of atomic nuclei, but for our closest star, we also have another source: neutrinos created in the Sun’s core.Whenever atomic nuclei undergo fusion, they produce not only high energy gamma rays but also neutrinos. While the gamma rays heat the Sun’s interior over thousands of years, neutrinos zip out...

Today, we reveal why we believe Nikola is an intricate fraud built on dozens of lies over the course of its Founder and Executive Chairman Trevor Milton's career... Inexpensive hydrogen is fundamental to the success of Nikola’s business model. Trevor has claimed in a presentation to hundreds of people and in multiple interviews to have succeeded at cutting the cost of hydrogen by ~81% compared to peers and to already be producing hydrogen. Nikola has not produced hydrogen at this price or at any price as he later admitted when pressed by media. Trevor has appointed his brother, Travis, as...

Explanation: The hydrogen in your body, present in every molecule of water, came from the Big Bang. There are no other appreciable sources of hydrogen in the universe. The carbon in your body was made by nuclear fusion in the interior of stars, as was the oxygen. Much of the iron in your body was made during supernovas of stars that occurred long ago and far away. The gold in your jewelry was likely made from neutron stars during collisions that may have been visible as short-duration gamma-ray bursts or gravitational wave events. Elements like phosphorus and copper are present...

Ning Yan and co-workers grew their nanogardens on a cloth consisting of carbon fibers of around 10 micrometers in diameter, a common electrode material in the fuel cell and electrolyser industries. The gardening started with depositing a layer of "soil" by hydrothermally encapsulating the fibers with a dense layer of cobalt hydroxide. This layer increased the structural stability of the nanostructures. Through variation of the ion concentration and temperature, they were able to induce the "sprouting" of grass-like features that are strongly "rooted" in the soil. These grasses have an average length of 1.5 mm and a thickness of around...