Posted on 05/18/2011 11:03:16 AM PDT by Red Badger
An international team, of scientists, led by a team at Monash University has found the key to the hydrogen economy could come from a very simple mineral, commonly seen as a black stain on rocks.
Their findings, developed with the assistance of researchers at UC Davis in the USA and using the facilities at the Australian Synchrotron, was published in the journal Nature Chemistry on May 15, 2011.
Professor Leone Spiccia from the School of Chemistry at Monash University said the ultimate goal of researchers in this area is to create a cheap, efficient way to split water, powered by sunlight, which would open up production of hydrogen as a clean fuel, and leading to long-term solutions for our renewable energy crisis.
To achieve this, they have been studying complex catalysts designed to mimic the catalysts plants use to split water with sunlight. But the new study shows that there might be much simpler alternatives to hand.
"The hardest part about turning water into fuel is splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen, but the team at Monash seems to have uncovered the process, developing a water-splitting cell based on a manganese-based catalyst," Professor Spiccia said.
"Birnessite, it turns out, is what does the work. Like other elements in the middle of the Periodic Table, manganese can exist in a number of what chemists call oxidation states. These correspond to the number of oxygen atoms with which a metal atom could be combined," Professor Spiccia said.
"When an electrical voltage is applied to the cell, it splits water into hydrogen and oxygen and when the researchers carefully examined the catalyst as it was working, using advanced spectroscopic methods they found that it had decomposed into a much simpler material called birnessite, well-known to geologists as a black stain on many rocks."
(Excerpt) Read more at sciencedaily.com ...
If a machine is to produce X Kilowatt-hours of work, you must supply it with X Kilowatt-hours of energy times the net efficiency of the conversion process. Water will in no way provide any amount of net combustion energy no matter how you catalyze the reaction of splitting it into its constituent atoms.
All you can hope to do is bring the efficiency closer to 1.
If the conversion is 100% efficient, you will get back the same energy from burning the hydrogen that was required to split apart. Hydrogen is a storage medium, not an energy supply.
In reading the article I noticed that the word Australia was mentioned repeatedly. That led me to assume it was in Australia. I checked, yup.
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia AND The university has eight campuses: six in Victoria (Clayton, Caulfield, Berwick, Peninsula, Parkville and Gippsland), one in Malaysia and one in South Africa. Monash also has a research and teaching centre in Prato, Italy and a graduate research school in Mumbai, India.
>>If the E-Cat is not a scam, it will probably be expensive, at first, anyway.<<
Anything that is progressing too fast can be brought to a halt or a slow down is done by taxing the snot out of it.
Who's "we"?
Ah the progress the Democrats represent. Much more of it, and we’ll be back to the horse and buggy and the requisite pooper-scoopers for our streets.
I love your irony. You do realize it was the GOP and more conservative governments, not the Democrats, who has cut funding to the labs...right?
Brookhaven has the most vocal voices against proposed GOP cuts...e.g., good ol' far-left Sen. Chuck Schumer and Rep. Tim Bishop.
There are many projects that have been affected by various funding halts.
Good timing for this release--even the Australian synchrotron is in trouble, with Ted Baillieu defunding it after taking over from Labour's John Brumby.
Read the article...again.
Monash has a track record on this line of research, also. For example:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/08/080817223544.htm
Yet water vapor doesn't have the residence time of CO2. That's why you don't hear of forcing with the former. When we have raindrops of CO2, that argument might hold...uh...water.
maybe you missed something....
It was my impression that we came up with the idea, and then worked in conjunction with the Australians. If your take is more accurate then I stand corrected.
With Obama’s gutting of our space program, AND Clinton’s gutting of our collider in Texas, it’s tough for me to imagine the ‘Right’ destroying our tools for productivity in a more focused way. JPL is going through the slicing and dicing process right now.
I do cater to the idea that both parties are working on consort to take this nation down though, so I do get your point. I’m sure there was slicing and dicing under Bush too.
http://www.hep.net/ssc/new/history/hepssc/clinton.html:
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON
June 16, 1993
The Honorable William H. Natcher
Chairman Committee on Appropriations
House of Representatives
Washington, D.C. 20515
Dear Mr. Chairman:
As your Committee considers the Energy and Water Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 1994, I want you to know of my continuing support for the Superconducting Super Collider (SSC).
The most important benefits of the increased understanding gained from the SSC may not be known for a generation. We can, however, be certain that important benefits will result simply from making the effort. The SSC project will stimulate technologies in many areas critical for the health of the U.S. economy. The superconductor technologies developed for the project's magnets will stimulate production of a material that will be critical for ensuring the competitiveness of U.S. manufacturers, for improving medical care, and a variety of other purposes. The SSC will also produce critical employment and educational opportunities for thousands of young engineers and scientists around the country.
Abandoning the SSC at this point would signal that the United States is compromising its position of leadership in basic science - a position unquestioned for generations. These are tough economic times, yet our Administration supports this project as a part of its broad investment package in science and technology. Our support requires making sure that the project is well managed and that the Congress is informed of the full costs and anticipated benefits of the program. The SSC previously had an unstable funding profile. The stretched-out funding proposed by our Administration of $640 million in FY 94 will allow better control of project costs. The full cost and scheduling implications of this stretch-out will be complete in the early fall, and will be examined carefully by the Administration at that time.
I ask you to support this important and challenging effort.
Sincerely,
(Bill Clinton signature)
Sorry about the formatting glitches.
Reminds me of Gracie Allen. George saw her putting a pot of boiling water into the refrigerator and asked why she was doing that. "This way," she explained, "whenever I need some boiling water all I have to do is take it out of the fridge and heat it up."
Exactly the point I am trying to make.
Do you suppose you could state your point in succinct technical terms? I’ve read the article and I’ve made mine. Kindly point out the error of my thinking.
I can see how you might reach that conclusion. The wording was a little misleading.
While I don’t know the specifics of this particular research, I do have a general understanding of how scientific research is funded.
I have family that engage in scientific research, and I know how he gets his funding. He writes grant proposals, and applies to a list of agencies interested in funding his types of research. Some of the sources are...Well, interesting, to say the least. Military, Intelligence, foreign governmental agencies as well as non-profit NGOs are some of the sources of his research funding.
The fact is, you are not likely to see the ChiComs doing this sort research. It doesn’t go well with Central Planning. It is easier to steal technology than develop it.
NO....
Fine then, I’ll just assume you don’t understand thermodynamics, physics or chemistry because you really can’t extract any more energy from water than you add to it. It’s the law.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.