TOMapleLaughs Posted July 10, 2013 Share Posted July 10, 2013 A team of scientists from Australia’s University of Wollongong have developed a way to turn sea water into hydrogen in order to produce a virtually unlimited clean energy source. They believe that their system would allow five liters of sea water to produce enough hydrogen to power an average-sized home and an electric car for one day. The team, based at Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Electromaterials Science (ACES), say they have developed a light-assisted catalyst that requires less energy input to activate water oxidation. This, they say, is the first step in splitting water to produce hydrogen fuel. When it comes to the production of hydrogen fuel, the major limitation with current technologies is that the oxidation process needs a higher energy input than the resultant energy from the process. Also using abundant sea water has a drawback, because it produces poisonous chlorine gas. However the team, led by Associate Professor Jun Chen and Professor Gerry Swiegers, have produced an artificial chlorophyll on a conductive plastic film that acts as a catalyst to begin splitting water. Speaking in the journal Chemical Science, Professor Jun Chen said that the flexible polymer would enable a wider range of applications to be more easily created than metal semiconductors. “The system we designed, including the materials, gives us the opportunity to design various devices and applications using sea water as a water-splitting source,” he said. “The flexible nature of the material also provides the possibility to build portable hydrogen-producing devices.” ACES Executive Research Director Professor Gordon Wallace agreed with his colleague saying: “In today’s world the discovery of high performance materials is not enough. This must be coupled with innovative fabrication to provide practical high-performance devices and this work is an excellent example of that." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mainly Mattias Posted July 10, 2013 Share Posted July 10, 2013 hmm.. i wonder if there's more info as to how this avoids the major problems of current hydrogren production: higher energy requirements for production and poisonous chlorine gas. the article doesn't address those. does the artificial chlorophyll on a conductive plastic film that acts as a catalyst lower the energy requirements? is there an alternate byproduct that is less harmful than chlorine gas? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AbbyNucksFan Posted July 10, 2013 Share Posted July 10, 2013 sounds promising.. and long overdue Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blame Obama Posted July 10, 2013 Share Posted July 10, 2013 hope its affordable Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gustavo Fring Posted July 10, 2013 Share Posted July 10, 2013 Take it in folks. This is the first and last time you'll hear about this development. Oil barons will nix it asap. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aladeen Posted July 10, 2013 Share Posted July 10, 2013 Sounds like a bunch of hippie talk in here to me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ckamo Posted July 10, 2013 Share Posted July 10, 2013 uh....well.. OK. Water splitting isn't new. http://www.technolog...gen-from-water/ One of them is now teaching at UBC. And I think it was the May issue of RSC's Chemistry World was almost completely dedicated to water splitting. I'm curious as to why this seems to be bigger than all the previous ones? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
D.Doughty Posted July 10, 2013 Share Posted July 10, 2013 There has to be a catch... Wasn't there a documentary where they talked about having unlimited energy in space but governments don't want people to use it because it would ruin the economy? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TOMapleLaughs Posted July 10, 2013 Author Share Posted July 10, 2013 uh....well.. OK. Water splitting isn't new. http://www.technolog...gen-from-water/ One of them is now teaching at UBC. And I think it was the May issue of RSC's Chemistry World was almost completely dedicated to water splitting. I'm curious as to why this seems to be bigger than all the previous ones? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ckamo Posted July 10, 2013 Share Posted July 10, 2013 I'm not going to pretend to be a chemist, but i'm guessing it's the artificial chlorophyll and the conductive plastic film. The other ones use metal. Whether or not that makes a significant difference isn't being reported in that op article, but artificial chlorophyll sounds cool. Here's another article that explains the development a bit better. Ah, that makes the finding sound more significant. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vavoom Posted July 10, 2013 Share Posted July 10, 2013 There has to be a catch... Wasn't there a documentary where they talked about having unlimited energy in space but governments don't want people to use it because it would ruin the economy? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lancaster Posted July 11, 2013 Share Posted July 11, 2013 Peak Oil Seawater! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DeNiro Posted July 11, 2013 Share Posted July 11, 2013 Take it in folks. This is the first and last time you'll hear about this development. Oil barons will nix it asap. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ronthecivil Posted July 11, 2013 Share Posted July 11, 2013 Peak Oil Seawater! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ronthecivil Posted July 11, 2013 Share Posted July 11, 2013 There has to be a catch... Wasn't there a documentary where they talked about having unlimited energy in space but governments don't want people to use it because it would ruin the economy? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nucklehead Posted July 11, 2013 Share Posted July 11, 2013 There has to be a catch... Wasn't there a documentary where they talked about having unlimited energy in space but governments don't want people to use it because it would ruin the economy? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Henrik Kesler Posted July 11, 2013 Share Posted July 11, 2013 There has to be a catch... Wasn't there a documentary where they talked about having unlimited energy in space but governments don't want people to use it because it would ruin the economy? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Electro Rock Posted July 11, 2013 Share Posted July 11, 2013 There are a lot of examples today where obscene profits are being made off of artificial scarsity. Our whole economic system is designed to transfer wealth from the middle class to the ultra wealthy. At this point its not so much that they need more money but that draining most of the middle classes' away money helps prevents it from forming a viable alternative. Anyway, the good thing about solar arrays is that you could put them just about anywhere, including roadways, sidewalks, parking lots, the exterior of structures etc, and not just in dedicated open spaces. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ghostsof1915 Posted July 11, 2013 Share Posted July 11, 2013 The reason you're hearing stuff like this is I bet the world oil reserves are far lower than everyone imagines. Especially with India and China trying to get more vehicles, the demand for oil keeps rising, and there's no new significant oil fields to find. There is only a finite supply. The world needs alternate sources for energy. Why do you think Shell and BP are already investing in non-oil energy development? When the oil companies are looking for alternatives, you know that's not a good sign. By the way, unless the US government has secret files locked away. Tesla never developed devices to generate electricity, only to transmit energy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Electro Rock Posted July 11, 2013 Share Posted July 11, 2013 The reason you're hearing stuff like this is I bet the world oil reserves are far lower than everyone imagines. Especially with India and China trying to get more vehicles, the demand for oil keeps rising, and there's no new significant oil fields to find. There is only a finite supply. The world needs alternate sources for energy. Why do you think Shell and BP are already investing in non-oil energy development? When the oil companies are looking for alternatives, you know that's not a good sign. By the way, unless the US government has secret files locked away. Tesla never developed devices to generate electricity, only to transmit energy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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