Blatant Reality

A new catalyst has been developed that separates the Oxygen from a water molecule. The hope is that with this cheap catalysts, researchers will be able to develop a way for the sun to power the necessary reaction, thus creating a new, sustainable source of energy.

Daniel Nocera, a professor of chemistry at MIT, has developed a catalyst that can generate oxygen from a glass of water by splitting water molecules. The reaction frees hydrogen ions to make hydrogen gas. The catalyst, which is easy and cheap to make, could be used to generate vast amounts of hydrogen using sunlight to power the reactions. The hydrogen can then be burned or run through a fuel cell to generate electricity whenever it’s needed, including when the sun isn’t shining.

 

Solar power is ultimately limited by the fact that the solar cells only produce their peak output for a few hours each day. The proposed solution of using sunlight to split water, storing solar energy in the form of hydrogen, hasn’t been practical because the reaction required too much energy, and suitable catalysts were too expensive or used extremely rare materials. Nocera’s catalyst clears the way for cheap and abundant water-splitting technologies.

 

Nocera’s advance represents a key discovery in an effort by many chemical research groups to create artificial photosynthesis–mimicking how plants use sunlight to split water to make usable energy. “This discovery is simply groundbreaking,” says Karsten Meyer, a professor of chemistry at Friedrich Alexander University, in Germany. “Nocera has probably put a lot of researchers out of business.” For solar power, Meyer says, “this is probably the most important single discovery of the century.”

However, this still doesn’t solve all the problems with using hydrogen as a fuel. Another catalyst needs to be developed to create hydrogen ions that is cheaper than the current platinum ones used.

Nocera created the catalyst as part of a research program whose goal was to develop artificial photosynthesis that works more efficiently than photosynthesis and produces useful fuels, such as hydrogen. Nocera has solved one of the most challenging parts of artificial photosynthesis: generating oxygen from water. Two more steps remain. One is replacing the expensive platinum catalyst for making hydrogen from hydrogen ions with a catalyst based on a cheap and abundant metal, as Nocera has done with the oxygen catalyst.

 

Finding a cheaper catalyst for making hydrogen shouldn’t be too difficult, says John Turner, a principal investigator at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, in Golden, CO. Indeed, Nocera says that he has promising new materials that might work, and other researchers also have likely candidates. The second remaining step in artificial photosynthesis is developing a material that absorbs sunlight, generating the electrons needed to power the water-splitting catalysts. That will allow Nocera’s catalyst to run directly on sunlight; right now, it runs on electricity taken from an outlet.

While this is definitely a promising step in the right direction, I wouldn’t hold my breath until they will discover the necessary catalyst.

There is a lot of talk now-a-days about how hydrogen fuel cell cars are going to be the newest and best thing of the future to help stop global warming and such. The whole idea of the this new fuel cell idea seems brilliant when you first look at it because the proposed source of hydrogen would be one of the most abundant molecules on earth (water) and the only emissions of these vehicles would be water vapor.

However, the scientists that are all up in arms about how global warming are the very ones that seem to be missing a very key fact about the whole greenhouse gas deal. Contrary to what you have learned, via the media or in school, water vapor is actually the number one greenhouse gas.

Water vapor in the troposphere is the biggest contributor to greenhouse gas warming.

Following water vapor, the next highest greenhouse gas contributor is methane with carbon dioxide a distant third.

Now, you would think that if water vapor is THE biggest contributor to greenhouse gas warming, we wouldn’t want to put any more into the environment than we already have. Yet environmentalist are constantly proclaiming hydrogen fuel cell cars as “zero-emission” vehicles.

Unlike many of the hybrid and “green” cars currently on the market, hydrogen cars offer the promise of zero emission technology, where the only byproduct from the cars is water vapor. Current fossil-fuel burning vehicles emit all sorts of pollutants such as carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, nitrous oxide, ozone and microscopic particulate matter. Hybrids and other green cars address these issues to a large extent but only hydrogen cars hold the promise of zero emission of pollutants. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that fossil-fuel automobiles emit 1 ½ billion tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere each year and going to hydrogen-based transportation would all but eliminate this.

It’s weird how the EPA supports hydrogen fuel cell technology when water vapor is such a major factor in the greenhouse gas warming.

The overlaps complicate things, but it’s clear that water vapour is the single most important absorber (between 36% and 66% of the greenhouse effect), and together with clouds makes up between 66% and 85%. CO₂ alone makes up between 9 and 26%, while the O₃ and the other minor GHG absorbers consist of up to 7 and 8% of the effect, respectively. The remainders and uncertainties are associated with the overlaps which could be attributed in various ways that I’m not going to bother with here. Making some allowance (+/-5%) for the crudeness of my calculation, the maximum supportable number for the importance of water vapour alone is about 60-70% and for water plus clouds 80-90% of the present day greenhouse effect.

Man, if water vapor is such a big contributor now with us just burning fuel products, imagine how big of a contributor it will be if we intentionally make it through “zero-emission” hydrogen cars.

I know there are those of you out there that will tell me that our potential affect on the water cycle will be miniscule and you may very well be right. But if you use this argument, don’t expect me to listen to you when you start going on about how we are the cause of global warming because of our carbon emissions. If we can affect the global climate in one aspect than we can surly affect it in another.

So even after that rant, I’m going to shock you a little. I’m actually in favor of hydrogen based fuel cell technology. The reason for this is that if the fact that these cars aren’t technically “zero-emission” is recognized, then things can be done to fix it. Things such as a way to capture and condense the vapor then release it as a liquid would be just one suggestion. The potential for a virtually limitless fuel source is just too good to pass up.

Anyways, I’m not a scientist, but if you are, feel free to chip in your two sense worth/tear this article to pieces in the comment section.