Posted on 01/29/2021 7:51:26 PM PST by BenLurkin
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 an oxygen evolving catalyst that takes just minutes to grow at room temperature on commercially available nickel foam. Paired with a previously reported hydrogen evolution reaction catalyst, it can achieve industrially required current density for overall seawater splitting at low voltage. The work is described in a paper published in Energy & Environmental Science.
Zhifeng Ren, director of the Texas Center for Superconductivity at UH (TcSUH) and corresponding author for the paper, said speedy, low-cost production is critical to commercialization.
To address both cost and stability, the researchers discovered a process to use nickel-iron-(oxy)hydroxide on nickel foam, doped with a small amount of sulfur to produce an effective catalyst at room temperature within five minutes. Working at room temperature both reduced the cost and improved mechanical stability, they said.
(Excerpt) Read more at scitechdaily.com ...
It’s about time somebody figured it out.
I thought I was going to have to do it myself.
I once heard a scientist speculate on what would happen if hydrogen could be produced cheaply and used to power automobiles. Its combustion product would be water vapor.
excellent
Desalinization has already achieved cost efficiency adequate to large scale production, but if hydrogen could be produced at a cheap rate, that would be excellent.
Why?
Dump it back in the ocean and kill off the marine life in that area?
Sell it cheap and put all the current salt mine workers in the unemployment line?
OK, the problem of rising sea levels solved. s/
Pump it in the ground to store heat.
https://nypost.com/2019/05/09/salt-could-be-the-future-of-renewable-energy/
And H2O2, AKA hydrogen peroxide.
They can go to China to make sure lar panels.
Sure lar= solar
What does one do with all the salt removed in the process?
John Kerry would say give it to the laid off pipe workers so they will have something to do.
Cuomo would say ‘Who cares’.
Hunter Biden would sniff it.
Funny last sentence of the first paragraph.
I guess I am a “scientist since we use to make hydrogen balloons with my dad’s battery charger when we were kids.
The greenies marxists will never allow free energy and water. . Never. Misery is the source of their power. Someone could invent the Mr Fusion and they’ll cry it hurts women and minorities and is systemically racist.
“What does one do with all the salt removed in the process?”
As long as it is dispersed widely enough, yeah, you can just put it back in the ocean.
They already do this with desalination plants.
The bigger question is what happens to say Las Vegas when all the cars start emitting pure water vapor. The localized effect on rain fall could be interesting
P4L
Desalination is not there yet. A new age will come when the cost of desalinated seawater low enough for agriculture. Since many of the world’s deserts are next to oceans the size of habitable earth will expand substantially.
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