Green Energy (Part 2): Just Leaf the Fuel Cells to the Flora

Yesterday at To Infinity And…In Theory we talked about Fuel Cells and their background story starting with the first man to dream them up (William Grove) and concluding with the man who sent them into space (Francis Bacon). If you missed yesterday’s entry don’t fret, you can catch up here. [Green Energy (Part 1): Four Score AndTwenty Years Ago Fuel Cells Were Born! …(ish)] Today we’re going to see how these pioneers who laid the very important groundwork for Hydrogen Fuel Cell technology are pushing the energy crisis out of the way.

After NASA witnessed the hidden potential of these tiny molecular powered batteries firsthand they were ecstatic to say the least. They jumped onboard the Green Tech train and launched some 200 projects using Fuel Cell research as the backbone. Sometimes it only takes one huge influence to boost innovation to invention. Since the 1960’s, laboratories all over the world have delved into these powerful technological marvels of science.

We’re going to talk just a little bit more about their history today (not much, we covered the history pretty well I think yesterday) starting from the bulky models used on Apollo to the silicon sheets half a nanometer thick today. We’ll also talk about how they work, how they charge them up, and a new harvesting technique that could make Fuel Cells the most cost effective energy option on the market to date.

Think you know Green Technology in and out? Well then, let’s put that knowledge to the test shall we.

It’s Not Easy Being Green

When Grove conceptualized the Fuel Cell in the late 1800s I doubt he had space travel in mind. Heck, at that point they barely had a grasp on it. But Francis Bacon’s Hydrox Fuel Cell blew everyone away in the middle of the 20^th century. Yet the technology didn’t catch on, Ford still had a monopoly on propulsion, no one was interested in a product that had not been tested. After all, who in their right mind would want to be a guinea pig?

But NASA saw the promise. (Oh NASA, how I love you. For real.) It launched 200 projects into Fuel Cell technology and sure enough in the late 60s, Bacon’s Fuel Cells, with some slight modifications, made their journey into space a reality. They were also used again in a little project you might have heard of. Apollo, perhaps? Ring any bells? I really hope so because the Apollo program accomplished one of the greatest feats of all time.

Apollo 11 put a man on the moon.

Yep, Apollo 11 was far more important than just the prequel to Apollo 13, (no Tom Hanks here, sorry folks!) it was the mission where Neil Armstrong planted the American flag on the lunar surface. (We really have to stop claiming things that technically don’t belong to us…) But how did this happen? Well there were millions of parts in motion, but an important aspect of the mission was a Fuel Cell.

More importantly, not only was the Fuel Cell capable of splitting Hydrogen and Oxygen in order to produce energy, it could reassemble the molecules to turn them back into water. I’m sure it was filtered, but this is what the Astronauts drank. Hydro Fuel Cell H2O.

So how does it do this? It’s pretty cool actually; I’ll break it down for you.

The Bacon Cell is essentially an Alkaline Fuel Cell, and boy are they efficient. What’s happening is called a Redox reaction. (Red = Reduction, Ox = Oxidation). This can be as simple as oxidation of carbon to yield Carbon Dioxide, or as complex as producing glucose inside the human body, both are forms of a Redox reaction.

Well this concept is happening inside the battery. (A stack of fuel cells). At the anode hydrogen is being oxidized. When this happens it enters its liquid state, water. It then re-enters the module and returns to the cathode where the water is then turned back to hydroxide ions. The cycle keeps repeating itself, thus creating a regenerative supply of energy. The best part of all you ask?

Electricity and heat are the byproducts. That means powering the ship, according to a molecule, is just their waste.

The electrodes are separated by an aqueous alkaline solution. It’s the catalyst for the reaction to produce water and electricity. There’s only one slight problem. If Carbon Dioxide gets into the Fuel Cell it can “poison” the entire system, compromising everyone onboard the ship. (Seen the new Sandra Bullock flick? Being compromised in space is scary stuff!) Because of this both pure oxygen is used and a scrubber is incorporated into the system so as to filter it after each pass. So why don’t we use this for the general public?

The poisoning effect we just talked about is one of the reasons. It can happen fairly easy, and if it does, it’s pretty much irreversible. Considering we expel carbon dioxide as waste from our lungs, we could potentially destroy the vehicle ourselves by just driving it. Ford would love it, but we’d be in the poor house. Pretty much, technology just wasn’t there yet for small, affordable, consumer models, after all, it was only the late 60’s, we didn’t even have Internet yet! (Or Google. What did we do before Google? I think it was like a library or like, something about Dewey…oh well.)

However that reality may not be so far away. In 1999 a transport boat that ran on AFC’s was put into commission. It was called the HYDRA. (Run Captain America!) Before they took it out of the water and decommissioned him he transported some 2,000 passengers and even won a few energy related competitions.

But now Fuel Cells, once again, have come out of the world of obscurity and are back in the spotlight. Yet now they aren’t just being looked at as a replacement technology because we might run out of gas. Now we need them because soon, we might kill the Earth if we keep it up, and running out of a planet is far more treacherous of a prospect then no more driving. At least to me, I don’t know how you feel about it.

So what are we doing to stop this bleak future from occurring? Researchers in Tennessee came up with a clever answer to that question. Let’s see what Popeye has to say about Science.

Eat Your Spinach, Sailor…

If you’re old enough to remember the man pictured above, then your childhood was most likely AWESOME! If not, I’m sorry…anyway. Do you know how Spinach makes the food it consumes? A little process called photosynthesis. Did you also know this produces chemical energy? Huh? Did ya!?

Well this chemical energy can be converted into another kind of energy, something of a kinetic variety. Mechanical energy to be exact, and at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, that’s exactly what scientists are looking to exploit.

It takes light 8 minutes to reach the leaves of the Spinach. In five trillionths of a second the plant is already converting that sunlight into energy. Where Alkaline Fuel Cells were efficient and their obvious replacement Silicon Fuel Cells was more so, the environment’s natural processes have billions of years ahead of us. While we’ve been trying to manufacture artificial versions of Mother Nature, Mother Nature has already created the perfect practice.

So how are they achieving this goal? Turns out you can infuse the leaves of spinach with platinum. Because chloroplast is already a conductor for the plant to make energy with, this platinum just enhances its natural abilities and suits it toward technology we can use. The best part of it all, it’s 100% green.

The platinum turns the spinach leaf into an electrical switch. Biometric scientists are looking toward this technology for use in the blind. It has the potential to be very effective for biotic eyes. Speed-of-light computers are also a potential for the same reason. The human retina registers light faster than anything we can currently build, but by using these platinum chloroplasts, it could provide the building block to make something that not only matches the speed at which the eye operates, but surpasses it as well.

Time will tell but I’m looking forward to this technology in the future. Want to know more about Spinach powered super computers? You can by clicking here.

So by now you’re probably asking yourself, “yeah that’s cool and all, but I thought this was about Fuel Cells.” Well…not that part in particular. But I just wanted you to understand the potential for plant based biotechnology, before I blew your mind. While they had one bionic eye on supercomputers when they were working with University of South Carolina to extract Spinach proteins, they had their other one trained on the future of sustainable energy.

Standing Fern on Green Energy

That complex tangle of green, yellow, and blue is actually fairly important to all of this. It’s called the Light Harvesting Complex, or LHC-II for short. It’s the protein that they pulled from the spinach responsible for the function of photosynthesis. The guys over at Clean Technica break it down the best:

Oak Ridge writer Bill Cabage describes the latest breakthrough as a biohybrid photoconversion system. The researchers were able to confirm that a particular light-harvesting protein derived from plain old supermarket spinach can be induced to assemble itself into a membrane, by putting it into a liquid solution containing synthetic polymers. The protein, called LHC-II (LHC stands for Light Harvesting Complex) interacts with the polymers to form a membrane, which in turn produces hydrogen. In other words the membrane acts as a kind of photovoltaic cell, but instead of generating electricity it generates-hydrogen.
Read more at Clean Technica

In short, clean, renewable, affordable, sustainable, and literally green as you can get energy. There is a catch though. This technology doesn’t come cheap. Platinum is incredibly expensive. But researchers at MIT may have an idea that could reduce that cost significantly.

“Leafing” It All Behind…

As I mentioned before, Platinum is super expensive stuff. Not to mention, it’s fairly uncommon as far as rare Earth elements go. Another problem with Fuel Cells was the ability to keep them self-contained and contaminate free. But that could theoretically be a thing of the past thanks the brilliant mind of Daniel Nocera. Toiling hard night and day in the bowels of MIT, he finally seemed to figure it all out.

He would grow trees that produced hydrogen instead of oxygen.

…

HA! Nope, but I had you going for a second there didn’t I? It might as well be that though considering the principle they operate on is exactly the same as a leaf.

No not the leaf, the thing on the leaf. And no, you don’t have to attach them to a leaf, they are self-contained and operational. No planting required. But the million dollar question is how do they work? It’s not a mystery, it’s just science.

When sunlight hits a leaf it begins to cause a chain reaction. The sunlight begins to convert chemicals within the leaf into free oxygen by breaking down water. That oxygen is then released back into the environment for us to breathe. This is basically how photosynthesis works though there are much more complex things happening, (HowStuffWorks.com will tell you all about it here.) But we should quickly clarify what we mean by “leaf”.

The artificial leaf may be a bit misleading; it’s actually called a Photoelectrocell. Photoelectrocells differ from Photovoltaic cells significantly. Voltaic cells generate voltage when light hits them, while Photoelectric cells generate electricity from light. Voltage determines the electric potential, meaning how much power there is going to be. (i.e 9V batter, 12V battery etc.) A Photoelectric cell converts it into electricity, like a solar panel, and its power is determinative of its capacity and how much energy is available. But anyhow, back to fake leaves.

By using the same basic principles of photosynthesis with only a few slight adjustments, Nocera created the little wafer pictured above to basically do just that. Except instead of producing free oxygen for us to breathe, it breaks down water into oxygen and hydrogen for us to use to power our cell phones, cars, laptops, and robotics. By placing it in a tankard of water (refilled daily) the Photoelectrocell can make all sorts of things happen.

And it’s fairly cheap.

Instead of running mostly on Platinum it uses very little of the precious element. It’s mainly comprised of Cobalt, Zinc, and other fairly inexpensive metals and minerals. The wafer is then coated in a sheet of silicon that is thick enough to better protect the metals from oxidation (rusting is a form of oxidation. Oxidation is what destroys the electrodes.) Yet thin enough to allow the reaction to take place effectively.

But in order for everything to work proper, clean water is the essential ingredient. Testing is currently underway to make one that can survive in slightly more contaminated environments but after a while it still clogs the chip and the process stops working. They also discovered another unique property of this, to a degree the silicon area of the chip will repair itself. Nocera and his team noticed this when they roughed up the surface in an attempt to discourage grime and biofilm from building up on the artificial leaf.

Unfortunately keeping contaminants out continues to be a problem. While a closed cell is possible, water is still needed for the initial catalyst. Clean water at that to avoid degrading the material faster than necessary. Not all parts of the world that could certainly benefit from this technology have ready access to clean water. Plus, in order to keep it cost effective, an open cell where water can continually be refilled is preferable as it wouldn’t have many special requirements that quickly add up to total wallet devastation over time. 

A Green Future (Literally)

As the price of solar technology continues to drop and the mass production of artificial leaves becomes a priority, Dr. Nocera claims we may see this technology in every household worldwide in as little as five years. But if there is one thing I know about the world it’s that the people with money don’t like to let go of it, and major power companies are not going to like this tech one bit.

Because of its potential to be extremely cheap to produce, it would be reasonably priced for the Consumer. If two panels cost $60, and two full size panels (we’re speculating here only) could potentially run a two story house, then pretty much anyone in the world could afford them, even in the most impoverished areas. Let’s face it; it would put Consumer’s Energy out of business and all other power countries worldwide.

Right now it’s estimated that the current cells cost around $6.50 USD to produce. While fossil fuels are sitting pretty at the height of popularity still, Fuel Cells are back. And just like when Grove powered the telegraph and truly became the definition of Avante Garde, they’re in line to change the way we live in this ever developing world.

-       Ryan Sanders

Thanks for reading! And as always if you want to know more about solar powered spinach, wireless Fuel Cells, or the artificial leaf and its creator follow any of the links below. Share it around, after all, everyone loves science!  Happy learning!

-       Nature article on the artificial leaf

-       Clean Technica’s article on the artificial leaf (equally as well written as the above)

-       BBC Horizon video with Daniel Nocera

-       Daniel Nocera’s TEDx talk about sustainability

-       Designboom article on turning grass clippings into solar panels

*Correction: In yesterday’s article I said the technology to turn Spinach into electrical switches was patented in the 1990’s. That was a typo. I meant 1980’s; the actual patent was issued in 1985. Sorry about that folks but mistakes do happen. - Ryan Sanders

Green Energy (Part 1): Four Score and Twenty Years Ago Fuel Cells Were Born ...(ish)

We’ve talked about green energy here at TI&IT before (Fossilizing Fossil Fuels ForFundamental Molecules) but coming up we’re going to get a bit more literal with it. In the 1990’s, researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratories (ORNL) in Tennessee, United States put a patent on electricity producing Spinach. Well Spinach proteins to be exact, but I mean, if a salad can provide the energy for our bodies to function, why can’t it power our cars too?

And that is exactly the strange line of thinking that brought us gel-like artificial chlorophyll in North Carolina and the hydrogen fuel producing solar powered trees at MIT. But how does this craziness actually work?

Well unlike electrolysis, which uses metal connectors and electrical currents to separate Hydrogen from Oxygen molecules in water, this method uses solar power through a form photosynthesis. So from start to finish, it’s a clean, green, energy producing machine. And do you want to know the best part about this? It’s cheap.

That’s right. For so long Hydrogen fuel cells seemed to elude us due to the fact that the production methods byproducts were harmful to us, not energy efficient, and above all, were not cost effective for the small quantities of power it yielded. In fact, depending on which process scientists used for past extraction methods, the energy loss percentage could sometimes be as high as ¾. That’s a lot of waste when you think about it.

Not everyone can keep paying seven dollars a gallon here in the U.S. for gasoline. In truth, even the ones who can afford it don’t want to. We burn through billions of gallons of the stuff worldwide every year, polluting the environment and avoiding clean energy. For our next multi-part series at TI&IT, let’s take an in depth look at just how the brilliant minds at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) are looking to change this. But first, let me tell you a little bit about a War, the telegraph, and four men named Grove, Bacon, Olds and Ford.

Telegraph For Mr. Grove

Believe it or not, fuel cell technology goes back a lot further than you think. In fact, it technically predates the Civil War. I know what you’re thinking, “You’re full of crap guy. The combustion engine came way before the fuel cell.” The truth is, you’re wrong. But at the same time, you’re also right.

In 1839 a man named Sir William Grove went to work on what would later earn him the sobriquet “The father of the fuel cell.” It was a power cell of sorts that consisted of a zinc anode in dilute sulfuric acid and a platinum cathode in concentrated nitric acid, the two separated by a porous ceramic pot.

Grove discovered that by arranging two platinum electrodes with one end of each immersed in a container of sulfuric acid and the other ends separately sealed in containers of oxygen and hydrogen, a constant current would flow between the electrodes. The sealed containers held water as well as the gases, and he noted that the water level rose in both tubes as the current flowed.

This invention changed the technological landscape. The Grove Cell was quickly implemented into American telegraph systems. The cells were grouped together and soldered on a wooden table to increase their output. This configuration was known as a battery. (And as we all know a “cell” is the smallest component of a “battery.”) This became a staple in the Telegraph system until the time of the Civil War.

But a problem soon set in. The high volume of traffic across the lines would sometimes cause the Grove Cells to overheat and convert the chemicals to gas causing them to discharge Nitrogen Dioxide. This is bad. Nitrogen Dioxide is toxic if inhaled. The good news? NO2 has a distinct and acrid odor to it, so detection is relatively easy. However it can anesthetize the nose, meaning after you smell enough of it, you don’t notice it anymore. In a large quantity it will lead to Pulmonary Edema (fluid in the lungs). If overexposed you basically drown from the inside out.

Luckily it was replaced by the Daniell Cell, but that’s another story for another day…now what was I babbling about? Oh yes, fuel cells.

While the concept of hydrogen power was nothing new, (British scientists William Nicholson and Anthony Carlisle had already described the process of using electricity to decompose water into hydrogen and oxygen in 1800), Grove took it a step further by describing a new kind of battery. In 1843, he developed what he called, a gas voltaic battery. The funniest part of it all however was that, while it operated by producing electrical current through the melding of hydrogen and oxygen, the technology and understanding of chemical properties was limited by the times.

In short, while it was neat to look at in awe, nobody really knew how it worked.

German scientist Ludwig Mond and his assistant Charles Langer were the next to capture the public’s attention with what was truly the first fuel cell. In fact, they’re the ones who coined it the name. Even though Grove is considered the founder of the technology, these two took everything to a whole new level.

They introduced porous electrodes which increased the productivity, and in 1889, they built the first working fuel cell that operated using air and coal gas to cause the reaction. It was truly phenomenal, but they still weren’t entirely sure about what was happening. It seemed some materials were more conductive than others and they just couldn’t figure out why.

It wouldn’t be until almost the turn of the century that Friedrich Wilhelm Ostwald, a founder of the field of physical chemistry, provided much of the theoretical understanding of how fuel cells operate. In 1893, he experimentally determined the interconnected roles of the various components of the fuel cell: electrodes, electrolyte, oxidizing and reducing agents, anions (a negative ion), and cations (a positive ion).

But there was still work to be done in order to perfect fuel cells. And a man named Francis Bacon was determined to make that happen.

Submarines and Spaceships

Pictured above is Francis Bacon standing proudly in front of the first somewhat efficient Fuel Cell ever developed. (And Lordy Almighty it’s a biggun!) See, Bacon’s design differed from Grove’s and Ludwig Mond’s significantly, as well it should. While the other two were researchers and scientists not used to working with high temperatures and huge pressures in heavy machinery, Bacon was an engineer. (Remember to respect your Engineers in the scientific community ladies and gentlemen! You may dream it up, but these guys are the ones who build it!)

He proposed that with the right changes made to the original design that the Fuel Cell could be a viable source of power for Submarines. Building off the work of Emil Bauer just a few years before him and his research into Fuel Cells and high temperatures, Francis Bacon hit the lab and began wrenching away on his invention. His discoveries opened the door for all modern research into Fuel Cell technology.

He first concluded that the diluted acidic solutions used to power the Fuel Cells currently available just wouldn’t cut it. The chemicals were far too corrosive to be truly efficient. He replaced the acid mixture with potassium hydroxide which wouldn’t damage the electrodes as much. The next change he made was even more significant. The platinum cathodes that Grove had used as his primary method of conducting electrolysis were switched out for much cheaper activated nickel electrodes.

In 1940 he moved to London to continue his research with a little more funding and equipment. It was here he discovered his “Eureka!” moment. Bacon developed the first double-cell with one unit for generating the hydrogen and oxygen gases and the other for the fuel cell. This could be reversed so that it acted as both an electrolyzer and a fuel cell. But problems were encountered due to the high operating temperatures and pressures and the corrosive nature of the chemicals.

The world was impressed to say the least and fuel cells moved from the realm of obscurity and scientific curiosity into the realm of, “hey, these may actually be useful!” The government gave him access to porous nickel, an invention so strange that it was actually protected under the Official Secrets Act. He used it to develop electrodes with large pores on the gas side and finer ones on the electrolyte side. This resulted in a much more stable product. The government began throwing funding at Bacon by the fistfuls.

Instead of embezzling this money (like we would in modern times *eye roll*) Francis actually used it for the betterment of mankind and in 1959 he built the Hydroxide Fuel Cell pictured above. But instead of going into the ocean the world had another idea for this wondrous new technology. And no, it wasn’t bombs.

Pictured above is a cutaway of the Gemini V fuel cell. As the Soviet Union was sending Sputnik up into Space, the United States knew it couldn’t just rest on its laurels, we had to compete. Bacon’s fuel cell model became the standard after outperforming standard battery power of the time by over 200 times the longevity of safe operation.

While the design may have changed over the years, variations of Bacon’s original fuel cell are used today to put spacecraft into orbit. During the Apollo missions, fuel cells were also used to produce clean drinking water. While they were capable of splitting hydrogen molecules from oxygen molecules they could also put them back together. (Hydrogen plus oxygen equals yummy nutritious water!)

It’s too bad that American’s favor cheap over innovation, a trend met with recent unrest over jobs leaving North America to head to China. But as Henry Ford discovered, an assembly line trumps manual progress every time.

Moving Forward

With the advent of the internal combustion engine, fuel cells seemed to fall to the wayside. While they were developed alongside fuel cells technically, the mass beginnings of petroleum excavation in the mid-1850s began to degrade public interest. After all, fuel cells weren’t widely understood, capable of producing toxic gases, and didn’t provide the same amount of power and efficiency that ICEs did.

China had already proven to the world the efficient nature of division of labor. To explain it, let’s modernize it a little bit. Pretend you work at McDonald’s as a cashier. Your duties involve interacting with the customer, taking the order, exchanging currency, and handing the customer a receipt. The order then goes to the back where a fry cook makes the burgers and French Fries. Another worker then comes up, bags the food, and hands it to the customer. At the end of the day another worker cleans the dishes while a manager counts all the income that was made that day in the back office before dropping the deposit off to the bank.

The splitting and designation of these tasks is called division of labor.

And of course the brilliant Chinese had developed this process.

Industrialization also brought about the decline of the fuel cell technology. It gave us machines that could cut and smooth parts using jigs and fixtures to guide them. The only human interactions were pressing a button, moving a platform, and placing the material to be cut. These were called interchangeable parts. Fast, accurate, and efficient, this lead to the assembly line.

While a man named Ransom Olds (you may remember him from his namesake, the “Oldsmobile”) developed the assembly line process, Henry Ford is often incorrectly credited. Ford did NOT invent the assembly line; he just perfected the process by adding conveyor belts into the mix. This resulted in the ability to build an entire Model T automobile in approximately an hour and a half. Now that’s production.

Luckily though fuel cells didn’t die out entirely and were just pushed aside temporarily.

Until now.

The “Anodes” of History

We too often think of fuel cells as being “new technology”, but as you can see, their rich history takes us back now almost two centuries! While we may have improved on the materials and costs of building fuel cells, and we understand now how they do what they do, the core of them has never changed. They still require electrodes, they still require chemical production, and they still aren’t as energy efficient as the internal combustion. However…

Recent advances in Green Technology (and I literally mean “Green”) have put fuel cells back into the mainstream again. Now that scientists and OPEC executives are beginning to grow squirrely over potentially dwindling petroleum wells, this could be the technology that saves the human race from ourselves.

Tomorrow we’re going to talk about how modern fuel cells operate and what they’re being used for currently. We’ll also discuss the various methods that go into creating them and who is pioneering the field now. Plus, a new way of gathering the fuel for the cells that should “leaf” you totally breathless. Hope you enjoyed the first part of this guys and gals! And thank you so much for reading To Infinity And…In Theory, it truly means the world to me.

-       Ryan Sanders

(Dilbert, from the gut-bustingly hilarious Scott Adams)

Thank you for reading this article on the history of the fuel cell. If you would like to know more about any of the above material you can by following any of the links below. Feel free to share this on Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, or any other Social Media site you may use. Happy learning everyone!

*Some time frames may be subject to discrepancy. Dates used in the article above are the assumed time frames within 1-3 years as information on specificities vary depending on the source. While I try to remain as accurate as possible, I am only as accurate as my sources. Thank you for your understanding.*

-       History of the Internal Combustion Engine

-       Applications of Fuel Cells

-       A timeline of events in Fuel Cell history

-       History of Fuel Cells and their correlation to modern trends

-       Full explanation and history of the Olds/Ford Assembly Lines

-       Early Fuel Cells in NASA applications

-       Wiki entry on Sir William Robert Grove

-       Brief history of the telegraph and use of the Grove Cells

Fossilizing Fossil Fuels For Fundamental Molecules

What’s The Alternative?

What are the similarities between your current automobile and a plant? Some of you might be saying, “Well, my car’s green. Is that what you’re talking about?” or, “Well my interior smells like a Rose, so I get it.” Truth is, there are no similarities. It’s a gas chugging, environment killing, and squirrel squashing road hog. But the University of Wollongong (UOW) in Australia is looking to change that once and for all.

We’ve been talking about alternative fuel sources for a long, long time now. It’s no secret to consumer’s that gas prices are through the roof and almost unbearable. Sustainable and alternative fuel sources wouldn’t just be nice to have as an option, it’s going to be the necessity of the future.

There are several theories on fossil fuels. Some believe that oil reserves are drying up. Others believe that the petroleum is created in the core of the Earth and the pressure is pushing the new stuff back up and refilling the wells. Biogenic theorists argue that fossil fuels are the decomposing remains of carbon based life-forms. Abiogenic theorist’s counter that the organisms found in the crude oil is surface contamination and oil is a mineral created within the core of Earth.

Whatever side you fall on, there is one thing that is certain.

Something’s gotta give.

Hungry, Hungry Humans

The United States is responsible for 1,000 barrels of oil being consumed a day. That’s one country in a very big, very developed world. You expand on that to include everyone and suddenly we’re burning through 89 million barrels worldwide, on a daily basis. That’s nuts, because once you expand on that to factor in a year of consumption, you now have 32 and a half billion barrels being munched down. Each barrel has 42 gallons in it. You do the math, but I shouldn’t need to tell you, that’s a ton (not literally…) of oil.

So you can see why scientists thought we were running out. See, in the 1970’s throngs of experts told the governments of the world that we reached the peak of our oil supply. Now it’s suddenly running out. I don’t know why everyone decided to hit the panic button and spike the prices (other than corporate greed…) before doing their research, but they said we’d be out of fuel in fifteen years. It’s well past 1985 and we’re burning the midnight oil faster than ever.

Not to mention our other fuels. We’re fracking away to get at Natural Gas under the surface. This has detrimental effects to the environment whether these major companies would like to admit it to the public or not. But we need the natural gas. Crude oil creates environmental pollution problems as well, and nuclear energy…I don’t even feel the need to explain that. So what do we do? How do we get the trillions of gallons of fuel per year we need to run as a nation?

Hydrogen.

I know what you’re saying. “Oh duh, of course, but didn’t they try that before?” Well of course silly. But the Wright brothers didn’t build a Boeing 747 for their first flight. Hell, their first craft would have been a blessing to have been held together by duct tape! Everything starts somewhere, and when we started hearing about fuel cells being all the rage a decade ago, they were just putting the thought into the general public’s ear.

The reality of making hydrogen cheaply, efficiently, and safely remains a huge concern, but as I mentioned above Australia is changing all of that. In order to understand what UOW is accomplishing you have to understand where it came from. Let’s quickly explore how they convert water into a usable fuel source.

*I cannot stress this enough, unless under the supervision of a professional NEVER and I do mean NEVER attempt to make hydrogen gas at home. Hydrogen in small quantities is fairly harmless; however, in larger quantities it can be EXTREMELY DANGEROUS! Hydrogen is explosive. Chlorine gas can also be inadvertently produced using this method. This, unlike Hydrogen is dangerous in ANY quantity. Do NOT try this at home*

The old method for hydrogen gas extraction wasn’t very practical. Only around 50-70% of the hydrogen was extracted in the process. The rest escaped in the form of heat from the electricity. Here’s how it works.

Salt water is placed into the containers with separate chambers. An anode (negative connector) is placed in one chamber and a cathode (positive connector) is in the other. As the charge surges through the H2O molecules it separates them into two different gases. The oxygen and hydrogen are collected separately. On a small scale this doesn’t produce enough hydrogen gas to be effective, plus there is a nasty byproduct.

Chlorine gas. Ever heard of World War I? Chlorine gas was introduced as chemical warfare. When breathed in, it basically liquefies your lungs and you die painfully, convulsing, bleeding from every orifice and vomiting up your internal organs. (Humans…what a lovely bunch of folk we are…)

This happens because of the salt. Water, electricity, and table salt (NaCL) have the potential to make it. (Study your chemistry ladies and gentlemen!) Now on an industrial scale this method, while costly, could produce enough fuel to run a few countries, but we need to run the world. So how did the UOW make this possible?

Here Comes The Sun

Yep, you guessed it, photosynthesis, and no, I haven’t lost my mind.

See there are all these little critters living on the surface under the ocean and just beneath it. Kelp, plankton, algae, all these organisms rely on the sun to produce energy. But what if that energy could be harnessed? That’s exactly what researchers at UOW intended to find out.

Using artificially developed chlorophyll and a conductive plastic polymer film, the researchers have begun splitting water molecules from its valuable energy. So far, the team hasn’t witnessed the production of the deadly chlorine gas. The plastic film acts as a catalyst to enact the energy producing process. The technical name for this process is a light-assisted, polymeric water oxidation catalyst that selectively oxidizes seawater with a low onset potential. In other words, turns water into hydrogen gas without electricity and harmful byproducts.

What are the benefits to this? Well first off, hydrogen fuel for our vehicles is a wonderful idea. Currently our vehicles pump carbon dioxide, amongst other terrible carcinogens, into our environment. Some scientists say this is leading to global warming. I think it just makes the air stink. But what’s the byproduct of hydrogen fuel?

Water.

That’s right, you drive 100 miles and all you spit out the back of your tailpipe is harmless water. That water is sucked back up by evaporation and deposited back into the oceans to undergo the process all over again. Talk about renewable sources!

Want to know the best part? Using this process, it only takes five gallons of sea water to run a converted house and an electric car per day. Think about it, that’s 35 gallons a week. Around 140 gallons per month, and around 51,000 per person a year. Considering over 75% of our planet is water, AND the byproduct gets recycled back into the environment, theoretically we would never have to touch gasoline ever again!

Magnetic Personalities

But that’s not the only new method currently being looked into. Researchers in Berkley, California, United States have accidentally developed a welcome new way of extracting hydrogen as well. Originally the program was intended to develop molecules that behaved like magnets, but what they got was something more interesting.

They were trying to combine metal atoms with organic molecular groups (called PY5) to produce new molecules with the properties of bulk magnets. What happened was one of the Molybdenum-oxo complex was exhibiting some peculiar behavior. Turns out it was able to transfer electrons. This process is the main ingredient to splitting hydrogen atoms from oxygen molecules.

“The molybdenum compound was so successful it could work on seawater or pure water without additives. The compound is stable due to five bonds holding the molybdenum in place. Long said the molecule is stable for long periods in aqueous solutions, and they saw no degradation in catalytic activity over their three-day experiment. The molecule remains stable even when impurities, such as those found in seawater, are present. This would further reduce the cost since no organic acids or solvents are needed.

The compound’s stability makes it more durable than the nickel and iron compounds used previously, but it is slower than the natural hydrogenases and needs a higher electric voltage to operate. The group is now experimenting with different metals and "tweaking" the PY5 groups to see if they can improve the speed and efficiency and reduce the energy requirements. They are also looking at the possibility of coupling the system to solar-generated electricity to make it even more viable.” – From Phys.org

This means that even if one technology isn’t available in one part of the world (say the safe and easy production of plastic polymer’s created by UOW, or Mo isn’t readily accessible in their region) we have other options for producing hydrogen gas. Moving forward in a green world this is going to become our future if we want to continue to have a planet.

We only have one Earth…for now. So let’s not muck it up in the meantime.

-Ryan Sanders

For further information on alternative fuel sources and the production of them you can follow any of the links below. As always thanks for reading and feel free to share this article around if you enjoyed it! Happy learning!

-     “Science Alert”  article

-       In depth article on light-assisted catalysts

-   Global Energy And NR Consumption Chart

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