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The Best Science Writing Online 2012
Showcasing more than fifty of the most provocative, original, and significant online essays from 2011, The Best Science Writing Online 2012 will change the way...
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[The following is an exact transcript of this podcast.]
Solar panels typically convert sunlight into electricity or heat. But photosynthetic vegetation converts sunlight into chemical energy. Now M.I.T.’s Daniel Nocera wants to bring photosynthesis to your home. Solar power only works, obviously, when the sun shines. Nocera’s idea is to take solar power and use it to for electrolysis—to break apart water into hydrogen and oxygen—which then could be recombined when needed in a fuel cell. The problem is that current electrolyzer technology takes a lot of energy in a harsh, alkaline environment. That’s because, surprisingly enough, it’s hard to get the oxygen out of the water, not the hydrogen.
Nocera designed a new catalyst for that oxygen step that works at room temperature and pressure, in a glass of water. When a current runs through an electrode, phosphate and cobalt in the water form a thin film on that electrode. And O2 bubbles right up. The work appears in the July 31st issue of the journal Science. This system could be paired with another electrode for the hydrogen side. Nocera believes that electrolyzers could be cheap and efficient within a few years.
—Cynthia Graber
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9 Comments
Add CommentAn amateur question: if O2 bubbles up from an electrode, where does the H2 go? How can the system release only O2? Isn't there a strict 2:1 ration between these two gases in water?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhy does fuel cell technology always seem like it's 'just around the corner' from real commercial viability? I remember writing papers in high school (late nineteen-seventies) about the latest technological breakthrough: hydrogen fuel cells "would soon revolutionize everything from automobiles to airplanes." Seems I've been reading about that 'breakthrough' ever since ... Sigh. I really wish I could get fired-up about Nocera's findings, but if this anything like all the rest of the fuel-cell findings. we're still be "just around the corner" ten, twenty years from now.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisZoroaster, a good question. Here's what is the likely answer, hopefully someone who really knows will chime in: the hydrogen is released as well, but without both electrodes (one for the O2 side, the other for the H side), the whole thing is limited to the conversion rate of the slowest side. To date, that's been the O2 side. From what the article says, the hydrogen side shouldn't be too difficult to work out ...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@cberger Thanks -- Yes wait for details I guess. I understand this was published 'open source.' Anyone have a URL?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd why doesn't the SciAm 'Amateur Scientist' have plans for us yet? ;>
Water for drink, bath, irrigation... and for power! It's like magic! It remember me the Aesop fable "the Man and de Satyr". In that the Man visiting the Satyr home said: "My hands are numb with the cold, and May breath warms them". And a little later: "the porridge is too hot, and my breath will cool it". The Satyr replied: "Out you go! I will have naught to do with a man who can blow hot and cold with the same breath".
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDoes saltwater disintegrate as regular water does with this process?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn this issue, SciAm offers two articles on the simplest yet omnipresent atom of hydrogen. This very first element on the periodic table is proving itself to be a very useful, reliable, renewable and clean energy source, except for the cost of producing it in abundance in the past.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRecently, good and interesting research news keeps pouring in. It is gratifying to note that MIT has come up with a new catalyst to help making of hydrogen from electrolysis easy and cheap. Researchers, keep up your good work for a better future for all. Nonetheless, ensure that the new technology comes to fruition.
Meantime, allow me to make an observation:
Comments and opinions in SciAm discussions are supposed to be healthy and friendly. A few readers have been prone to make remarks like completely wrong on the opinions of others. Opinion is a personal perception, dear to the person who makes it. It needs not be factual every time; so the question of right and wrong (let alone completely wrong) does not necessarily arise.
(Tan Boon Tee)
SciAm gives two articles on the omnipresent yet simplest atom of hydrogen. This very first element on the periodic table is proving itself to be a very useful, reliable, renewable and clean energy source, except for the cost of producing it in abundance in the past.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRecently, good and interesting research news keeps pouring in. It is gratifying to note that MIT has come up with a new catalyst to help making of hydrogen from electrolysis easy and cheap. Researchers, keep up your good work for a better future for all. Nonetheless, ensure that the new technology comes to fruition.
Meantime, allow me to make an observation:
Comments and opinions in SciAm discussions are supposed to be healthy and friendly. A few readers have been prone to make remarks like “completely wrong” on the opinions of others. Opinion is a personal perception, dear to the person who makes it. It needs not be factual every time; so the question of right and wrong (let alone completely wrong) does not necessarily arise.
(Tan Boon Tee)
Perhaps your listeners would be interested in watching a 10-minute video about the Nocera-Kanan discovery. Its the pilot for a project called Chemical Explorers, a series of Internet videos about interesting developments in modern chemistry. Because its intended for a general audience, the video doesnt go into the kind of technical detail that some of the earlier posts do. But it does allow viewers to hear directly from the two chemists behind this discovery, it shows the cobalt catalyst in action, and it tells the interesting story of how the discovery came about. The video can be watched at the following site:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://chemicalexplorers.blip.tv/#1150780
Steve Lyons