Splitting water to create renewable energy simpler than first thought?

"Birnessite, it turns out, is what does the work. Like other elements in the middle of the Periodic Table, manganese can exist in a number of what chemists call oxidation states. These correspond to the number of oxygen atoms with which a metal atom could be combined," Professor Spiccia said.

"When an electrical voltage is applied to the cell, it splits water into hydrogen and oxygen and when the researchers carefully examined the catalyst as it was working, using advanced spectroscopic methods they found that it had decomposed into a much simpler material called birnessite, well-known to geologists as a black stain on many rocks."

The manganese in the catalyst cycles between two oxidation states. First, the voltage is applied to oxidize from the manganese-II state to manganese-IV state in birnessite. Then in sunlight, birnessite goes back to the manganese-II State.

...

“Scientists have put huge efforts into making very complicated manganese molecules to copy plants, but it turns out that they convert to a very common material found in the Earth, a material sufficiently robust to survive tough use.”

http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-05-renewable-energy-simpler-thought.html

I read that as spitting water. Did make me click on the thread, though. :D

There's a Zeroeth law, but here the 1,2,3.

1- You can only get out of a system what you put in.
2- You can only get out of a system what you put in at absolute zero.
3- You can never achieve absolute zero.

Am I right on this? I think it's close.


It's just a perspective. And really has nothing to do with this thread. It would be great if we could break up water with less energy than what we're used to. But even if we can, the above still applies. I guess I'm leaning more toward solar and wind every day. I used to think there would be some magical method. But those two forms of generation are pretty effective for the costs involved.


I really should be doing something with my day. But it's raining. So I'm blabbing.

1) you can't win
2) you can't break even
3) you can't get out of the game


I'm very skeptical of hydrogen as an energy transport medium, especially for individual consumer usage. However, it seems more feasible if you are using it for larger-scale energy storage on a grid, or as an industrial feed stock for synthetic methane or propane. So in that respect, new and better ways to make hydrogen seem interesting to me.

I always thought making hydrogen would be a good use of spare energy and waste heat from nuclear reactors. I suppose post-Fukushima it's even more pointless mentioning that than it was before.

I was just on the phone with my dad. He and I started an electronics company. They just came out, or are just finishing developing, a product that monitors photovoltaic arrays for shorted or bad cells. It's on. The world sees very clearly what we can't do. A century of coal, and now nuclear. Accidents will happen. And we cannot afford them. One planet. I think we're going to be lucky if we escape with our behinds intact. There are billions of people still getting ready to rev up their engines.


By the way, I do see the difference between conversion for use, and conversion for storage. It's going to be a great time in the near future. I don't find myself saying that very often. I wish I were involved in some way. I'll just be happy to watch. And hope we can phase out the nonrenewable and damaging energy conversion processes. Hell, it was only 100 years ago that some guys in a bike shop built a plane.

And you may be right, if I can assume what you are saying. That a process can occur at that temperature. But the problem is, it would take energy to have that process happen. And that would mean the loss of energy in the overall system.

I'm open to all kinds of cool things. I believe there is other life in the universe. And if so, who knows what they may have discovered. Or what we will discover. So far we aren't getting a free ride. Solar is about as good as it's going to get. Fusion still isn't happening aside from the sun.

But it's probably just me.

You get to call it an energy source if you're fusing it into helium. Otherwise, it's Bad Science Reporting FAIL.

...than you get out of it.

If this pans out, it's a way to convert solar energy to useful fuel (and/or store that solar energy), it isn't a source of energy in and of itself.