A cheap, emissions-free device that uses a 1.5-volt AAA battery to split water into hydrogen and oxygen by electrolysis has been developed by scientists at Stanford University ( http://news.stanford.edu/news/2014/august/splitter-clean-fuel-082014.html ).
Unlike other water splitters that use precious-metal catalysts, the electrodes in the Stanford device are made of inexpensive, abundant nickel and iron.
“This is the first time anyone has used non-precious metal catalysts to split water at a voltage that low,” said Hongjie Dai, a professor of chemistry at Stanford. “It’s quite remarkable, because normally you need expensive metals, like platinum or iridium, to achieve that voltage.”
http://www.kurzweilai.net/a-low-cost-water-splitter-that-runs-on-an-ordinary-aaa-battery
http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2014/140822/ncomms5695/full/ncomms5695.html
(Score: 2) by frojack on Sunday August 24 2014, @05:48AM
5th grade science class.
Very cool.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Sunday August 24 2014, @09:44AM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 24 2014, @02:02PM
One can use graphite electrodes (pencils). Voltage will be higher (notice that thermodynamics allows to go as low as ~1,1V so 1,5V is enough) but people were doin it since XIX century.
Here they just got record low voltage for iron-nickel electrodes.
(Score: 1) by tftp on Sunday August 24 2014, @06:50AM
There are several interesting claims in this article, such as:
Water vapor is a greenhouse gas [skepticalscience.com]. (One can find confirmation on many sites, not just this one.)
On this planet most of electric energy is produced by burning dead dinosaurs and ancient forests. In some countries the share of nuclear and solar power is higher than in the other, but in general non-fossil fuel power stations are not very common. Nuclear stations are being closed for many reasons; solar power plants ignite thousands of birds in the air; wind turbines mince those birds without burning. Nothing is perfect.
Hydrogen is a problem fuel for many reasons. For example, it has very low energy density by volume. Rockets fly on liquid hydrogen because otherwise their fuel tanks would be of impossible size. Hydrogen leaks through metal walls, and it makes metals brittle. There was never a problem with making hydrogen, even without this invention. The problem is in using it. Anyone is welcome to try to handle a standard gas cylinder with Hydrogen gas.
This is not to say that tanks for Hydrogen are impossible in principle. Per Wikipedia [wikipedia.org]:
Practicality of Hydrogen as a gaseous fuel for vehicles remains to be seen. First purchaseable cars should be coming onto the market within a couple years; prototypes are being tested for at least a decade. Extremely low density of Hydrogen will create some serious issues with delivery of gas, perhaps requiring cryogenic storage to achieve any reasonable supplies in a reasonable volume. This is not gasoline that you pour into something and it stays there. It's literally rocket science, and handling this fuel may be very expensive in terms of energy.
And one more thing: avoid leaks of Hydrogen [wikipedia.org] - not only it burns readily, it is also flammable and explosive [arhab.org] in extremely wide range of mixtures. For example, gasoline has to be mixed with air within 1.4% to 7.6% to burn within the engine. Anyone who was playing with a carburetor knows that sometimes the thing just won't run, and that is why. However Hydrogen is flammable from 4% to 74%. The explosion limits are also wider. Gasoline only explodes if mixed between 1.1% and 3.3%. Hydrogen explodes between 18.3% and 59%. Hydrogen also requires ignition energy 10 times as small as gasoline. In other words, it's quite a volatile fuel.
(Score: 1) by andersjm on Sunday August 24 2014, @07:58AM
You're nitpicking, water vapor is not a greenhouse gas emissions problem, which is obviously their point. Nitpicking right back at you, the quoted statement doesn't actually say that water vapor isn't a greenhouse gas.
It also has very high energy density by weight - 142 MJ/kg. In comparison, diesel is only 45 MJ/kg. So the problems may be worth while trying to overcome.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Monday August 25 2014, @02:18AM
Wasn't there some thought of having gaseous hydrogen embedded in a spongelike solid to make it more manageable as a common fuel? That's about all I remember; maybe somone recalls what I'm talking about.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 1) by tftp on Monday August 25 2014, @02:45AM
Wasn't there some thought of having gaseous hydrogen embedded in a spongelike solid to make it more manageable as a common fuel?
Yes, there are about twenty different chemistries [wikipedia.org] that bind hydrogen within solids. Those methods are expensive in many aspects, and majority of them haven't left the labs. I do not know if any of them will ever be successfully used in a venicle. The linked article points out that research is continuing in this direction.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Monday August 25 2014, @04:09AM
Not very promising. :( Seems like the only realworld-practical method use would be just-in-time splitting that feeds directly into the combustion chamber, but in that case is there any net energy gained??
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 1) by tftp on Monday August 25 2014, @04:37AM
Seems like the only realworld-practical method use would be just-in-time splitting that feeds directly into the combustion chamber, but in that case is there any net energy gained?
Not really. There is no net energy gain anywhere in electrochemical Hydrogen cycle simply because you cannot mine Hydrogen (without a ramscoop [wikipedia.org], at least.) Please see this comment [soylentnews.org]. If you have an electric battery in the vehicle, you would be better off just powering an electric motor with its energy - you'd have fewer moving parts and smaller losses.
But even though Hydrogen is only usable as storage of energy, it might be an attractive one due to absence of harmful products. Still, burning of Hydrogen requires a thermal engine - and those are not very efficient. Storage and distribution of liquid Hydrogen would require a new industry, and it will be a dangerous one due to potential for massive fires and explosions. And with all that it would be nothing more than an intermediate step between today's Teslas and EVs of tomorrow. I just do not see Hydrogen as a fuel for vehicles 20, 30 or even 100 years down the road. In my estimate, all vehicles will be by then operating on electric power. It's very possible that even today an EV, considering all related costs, would be cheaper to run than a Hydrogen car. If so, the time of Hydrogen has already gone.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Monday August 25 2014, @05:08AM
Thanks for the info. Not the best of prospects outside of specialty uses.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by tftp on Monday August 25 2014, @02:58AM
It also has very high energy density by weight - 142 MJ/kg. In comparison, diesel is only 45 MJ/kg. So the problems may be worth while trying to overcome.
Perhaps. I don't want to sound too negative on Hydrogen energy storage. However anyone can easily imagine a small can with a bit more than a liter of diesel fuel, and anyone can hold it in one hand. What will it take to capture and store a kilogram of Hydrogen, the lightest chemical element? At pressure of 1 atmosphere it would be a balloon that contains 12 thousand liters, or 3200 gallons. This is why one has to carry Hydrogen in liquid form, or as slush (still experimental,) or as a bomb (a high pressure tank.) Filling with such fuel is also more complex than merely sticking a hose into a hole. I cannot even imagine what kind of a connector will repeatedly survive 10,000 psi while being operated by an untrained car owner, and what kind of reinforced hose will it require. Any crack in any of that will blow up pretty good; a cloud of Hydrogen will be released. If fueling is done in a confined space, the operator may suffocate. If any spark is found, the thing will explode like thermobaric ordnance.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Sunday August 24 2014, @10:00AM
Hydrogen is quite a volatile fuel...
I have seen reports and would like to verify that if one places something like this electrolysis device in his car, ( powered from the alternator ) he can get a stream gaseous hydrogen and oxygen which can be piped into the air intake of the vehicle.
The object is to use the resulting "water gas" to act as a flame-front stabilizer as the spark coil ignites the gasoline air mixture. Think of it like lighter fluid is to charcoal. The idea being the hydrogen is one heckuva lot easier to start than the heavier hydrocarbons are, and using the hydrogen explosion to more uniformly ignite the heavier gasoline-air mixture - where the vast majority of the energy release will occur.
I have seen this discussed in other forums and have no idea how practical it is, however it sounds like it may have merit.
One thing about a hydrogen leak though... its going straight up, not down the street in the gutter where it will set rows of parked cars on fire as well. However, in a closed garage, I suppose that little tidbit won't make much difference - I guess the whole house will mimic the inside of the cylinder during the power stroke. I really do not like the idea of storing compressed hydrogen at home for the same reason I won't keep gasoline cans or propane tanks in the house.
Anyone heard of using propane injection on diesel engines for the same reason? I have heard it greatly increases efficiency, eliminates soot, and most of the resultant emissions gas to plain old CO2 instead of unburned hydrocarbons and underburned fuel leaving as CO. That is something I would like to tinker with one day and verify whether it does or does not, but I have been way too busy doing other things...
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Sunday August 24 2014, @11:18AM
More importantly, if you split water and then later burn the hydrogen, what you do is not energy production, but energy storage. So you don't compare it to burning fossil fuels, you compare it to storing the electricity in batteries, or to storing it by pumping water uphill.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 1) by richtopia on Sunday August 24 2014, @07:04AM
The catalyst for splitting water is a huge field of research. An iron-nickel based solution has been sought out by many researchers, but typically the lifetime is minimal, while platinum catalysts will last for a long time. If they figured out a catalyst for this reaction that is cheap, that is HUGE. However, the article approaches it with the AAA battery - what a weird power source. If we are splitting water for energy storage, we are going to be doing it at large scale. Yes, 1.5 volts is relevant, but will this scale beyond a toy?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 24 2014, @03:26PM
> However, the article approaches it with the AAA battery - what a weird power source.
Science news for dummies. I'm sure the actual authors of the paper are even more perplexed by that focus.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Sunday August 24 2014, @09:32PM
Well, obviously for larger systems you'll need an AA battery. ;-)
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 1) by ld a, b on Sunday August 24 2014, @08:22AM
Now our customers will be able to recharge their fuel-cell cars in Tesla stations and maybe even drive to the next town.
10 little-endian boys went out to dine, a big-endian carp ate one, and then there were -246.