Scientists at Stanford develop water splitter that runs on ordinary AAA battery
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Re: Scientists at Stanford develop water splitter that runs on ordinary AAA battery
#2How is this a story? Did someone at Stanford open up a grade 10 Chemistry textbook?
Re: Scientists at Stanford develop water splitter that runs on ordinary AAA battery
#3How is this a story? Did someone at Stanford open up a grade 10 Chemistry textbook?
From the article: "Using nickel and iron, which are cheap materials, we were able to make the electrocatalysts active enough to split water at room temperature with a single 1.5-volt battery. This is the first time anyone has used non-precious metal catalysts to split water at a voltage that low. It's quite remarkable, because normally you need expensive metals, like platinum or iridium, to achieve that voltage."
Re: Scientists at Stanford develop water splitter that runs on ordinary AAA battery
#4How is this a story? Did someone at Stanford open up a grade 10 Chemistry textbook?
"But scientists have yet to develop an affordable, active water splitter with catalysts capable of working at industrial scales."
"The nickel/nickel-oxide catalyst significantly lowers the voltage required to split water, which could eventually save hydrogen producers billions of dollars in electricity cost"
Making it more plausible I suppose. The only thing I have a problem with is that they used a battery, which required electricity to be initially charged. The electricity had to be generated somehow. If we plan to use to charge the batteries to split the water to generate the hydrogen to power our cars, I think very few people will be driving.
Re: Scientists at Stanford develop water splitter that runs on ordinary AAA battery
#5How is this a story? Did someone at Stanford open up a grade 10 Chemistry textbook?
From the article: "Using nickel and iron, which are cheap materials, we were able to make the electrocatalysts active enough to split water at room temperature with a single 1.5-volt battery. This is the first time anyone has used non-precious metal catalysts to split water at a voltage that low. It's quite remarkable, because normally you need expensive metals, like platinum or iridium, to achieve that voltage."
But it really isn't. The only thing of minor note here is room temperature vs doing it at 60 deg C.
Re: Scientists at Stanford develop water splitter that runs on ordinary AAA battery
#6... and not a single word about how the necessary electricity needed to make this "zero emission fuel" is supposed to be produced.
Plus, all I know about hydrogen points to it not being anything close to "an ideal fuel for powering vehicles, buildings and storing renewable energy". It has very low density, requires cryogenic storage or very heavy pressure vessels, migrates through materials, and is explosive when mixed with air.
Re: Scientists at Stanford develop water splitter that runs on ordinary AAA battery
#7... and not a single word about how the necessary electricity needed to make this "zero emission fuel" is supposed to be produced. Plus, all I know about hydrogen points to it not being anything close to "an ideal fuel for powering vehicles, buildings and storing renewable energy". It has very low density, requires cryogenic storage or very heavy pressure vessels, migrates through materials, and is explosive when mix…
See also "hydrogen embrittlement" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_embrittlement Many materials you might select to carry hydrogen are weakened by it.
Re: Scientists at Stanford develop water splitter that runs on ordinary AAA battery
#8Earlier quoted context omitted.
From the article: "Using nickel and iron, which are cheap materials, we were able to make the electrocatalysts active enough to split water at room temperature with a single 1.5-volt battery. This is the first time anyone has used non-precious metal catalysts to split water at a voltage that low. It's quite remarkable, because normally you need expensive metals, like platinum or iridium, to achieve that voltage."
But it really isn't. The only thing of minor note here is room temperature vs doing it at 60 deg C.
At scale, that's a good bit of energy, I would assume. But I had the same reaction as you did. "My 7th grade science class did that..."
Re: Scientists at Stanford develop water splitter that runs on ordinary AAA battery
#9This isn't news.
"The researchers also plan to develop a water splitter than runs on electricity produced by solar energy."
Unfortunately that approach would be less efficient that simply transferring the electrical energy to an electric motor.
Light > Electricity > Hydrogen > Electricity > Electric Motor
is longer than
Light > Electricity > Electric Motor
Re: Scientists at Stanford develop water splitter that runs on ordinary AAA battery
#10How is this a story? Did someone at Stanford open up a grade 10 Chemistry textbook?
"But scientists have yet to develop an affordable, active water splitter with catalysts capable of working at industrial scales." "The nickel/nickel-oxide catalyst significantly lowers the voltage required to split water, which could eventually save hydrogen producers billions of dollars in electricity cost" Making it more plausible I suppose. The only thing I have a problem with is that they used a battery, which re…
You wouldn't actually use a battery. It just makes a neat demo.