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Since AAA baterries are a free, abundant and renewable resource, the Earth is saved!

HydroCabron says

Since AAA baterries are a free, abundant and renewable resource, the Earth is saved!

This is only half of the process of course.

The issue with water splitting is that it requires 1.5v

Cheap solar cells only produce 0.75v

However, Hypersolar has been working on direct conversion (solar to hydrogen) that has achieved 1.25v. They are working towards 1.5v

http://hypersolar.com/news_detail.php?id=61

John Bailo says

The issue with water splitting is that it requires 1.5v

Cheap solar cells only produce 0.75v

Wire two of them in series.

My sister makes over $6,000 a week using water electrolysis -- you can too!

Seriously, let me know when it scales. The device runs for mere days, and I notice the omission of how much "free hydrogen" is produced. And then, how is it stored?

thunderlips11 says

My sister makes over $6,000 a week using water electrolysis -- you can too!

A local mom produces thousands of gallons of liquid hydrogen - oil companies hate her!

Well, since everybody produces methane and Americans probably produce double or triple the quantity due to their ginormous size-I wonder if we can hook ourselves to our houses and turn it into electricity??

John Bailo says

The issue with water splitting is that it requires 1.5v

Cheap solar cells only produce 0.75v

However, Hypersolar has been working on direct conversion (solar to hydrogen) that has achieved 1.25v. They are working towards 1.5v

LOL

If THAT were indeed a problem how is it possible for any solar panel to run a 110V house?

HydroCabron says

Wire two of them in series.

BINGO!!!

Cheap solar panels can put out any voltage you want if you put multiple panels in a series.

HydroCabron says

thunderlips11 says

My sister makes over $6,000 a week using water electrolysis -- you can too!

A local mom produces thousands of gallons of liquid hydrogen - oil companies hate her!

lostand confused says

Yeah, that's what I was thinking too.

Ppl, coal to gasoline, a.k.a synfuel, has been a reality for South Africa (via Sasol Corp) for the past half century because during Apartheid, they were facing a global embargo in oil imports.

Now that the price of petrol is clearly stable at ~$4/gallon, the first synfuel facility will be operational in West VA in 2016, as it's economical to convert coal to gas even stateside, and companies have gotten started. Even Montana is talking to Sasol Corp about the feasible of installing a facility in their own state.

With the above stated, since these are real world activities and not fantasies, I don't comprehend to so-called infeasible hydrogen economy when the energy industries are already beginning to convert our coal reserves into the thing we use the most, gasoline and other hydrocarbons. There are two plus centuries of coal underground but yet, there's all this hoopla about electrolysis of water?

QUOTE: "Hongjie Dai and colleagues have developed a cheap, emissions-free device that uses a 1.5-volt battery to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. The hydrogen gas could be used to power fuel cells in zero-emissions vehicles."

A naive reader undoubtedly will read the above paragraph and think that the stated invention "solves" the problem of "where do we get hydrogen fuel from".

But, no. The new and cheaper electrode materials just make electrolysis a slightly less dumb way of wasting high-value electrical energy by using it to make H2. That's all.

PS: As an aside, no-one in their right mind would propose using AA-batteries as an energy source for making hydrogen or for any other purpose other than small portable applications where convenience trumps energy efficiency. For people who cannot quite understand that (and it really is very basic physics), I will pose the following question:

If AA batteries are a good "energy source", why do you not run your household on a bank of AA batteries? It is easy enough to stack up, say 80 of them (120V dc!) and hook them up to a 90+% efficient DC/AC converter and get 110-120V AC out. Do you understand why we do NOT do this? Unless you do, you have no business making any statements about energy at all. You should go back and take remedial high-school physics.

The paper by Ulf Bossel (et al) that explains the fallacies of using H2 as a energy carrier (or storage medium) can now be found at

http://ebookbrowsee.net/efcf-pdf-d61218975

It gets tiresome to keep debunking hydrogen (H2) as an energy solution. I refer to my posts in previous threads, for example.

http://patrick.net/?p=1229573

justme says

The paper by Ulf Bossel (et al) that explains the fallacies of using H2 as a energy carrier (or storage medium) can now be found at

http://ebookbrowsee.net/efcf-pdf-d61218975

Sir,

The limitations posed by this article do not address the nanoscopic potentials and orbital modifications made by Nanotubes.

Think of a Nickel or Nickel Oxide in a nanotube as having a few molecules of the metal and carbon nanotube periodically. Thus, the material embedded in the nanotube is like a new element in the periodic table. Thus, non of the arguements against its feasibility in the cited paper is relevant.

http://www.physicscentral.com/explore/action/
.cfm

Doping + reducing bonding energy of H2O to local minima = end of dependancy on fossil fuels. Equals H2 on demand, mitigating storage, transportation, and explosive issues.

Entitlemented says

Doping + reducing bonding energy of H2O to local minima = end of dependancy on fossil fuels.

This is just plain delusion. You CANNOT circumvent the laws of thermodynamics. Those are laws of nature, and cannot be altered.

What about using power panels to storage energy by creating hydrogen, to be consumed later on (at night)? Does it have future?

Unless I missed it the article doesn't give a net energy rating here. It does state that you don't need fossil fuels to spilt the water. I guess all the batteries, equipment ,transport,etc used some kind of "magic energy" source....Hmmm if we had that we wouldn't need to split water to get H2.
Hydrogen falls into the same realm as the bio-fuels fantasy

Curious studies like these, always come back reported as "Other's couldn't reproduce the same results".

Give it up ppl. As long as there's 200+ years of coal underground in the US, there will not be a fictitious economy based around hydrogen.

In fact, I'd even argue that the solar, microwave, and battery/storage future R&D efforts will become a global enterprise as the rest of the Asia-Pacific rim (sans PRC) is not as coal rich as America and doesn't have 2 centuries to waste.

ja says

What about using power panels to storage energy by creating hydrogen, to be consumed later on (at night)? Does it have future?

Nope. Too large conversion losses going from electricity to hydrogen (don't forget to include compression for storage) and back to electricity. The best solution is to use the surplus instantly (displace power from any plant that runs on fossile fuel at the same time), whether locally or by shipping it across the grid to a different time zone, say.

In case you wonder, that was not I who Disliked your question. I don't know you yet, so I assume it was an honest question.

Anyway, as you may have guessed already, the important word of these times is DISPLACE. Always use any "surplus" of green electricity to displace (and/or *delay* the consumption of) fossile energy. And when we eventually get to the point of zero fossile energy, because there is none left :-(, or sooner, use any surplus green energy to displace energy that ALREADY is in storable form, such as hydro. Never even contemplate converting energy for storage if there is a good way to displace already stored (fossile/hydro/whatever) energy.

CaptainShuddup says

Curious studies like these, always come back reported as "Other's couldn't reproduce the same results".

The study of new electrode materials may in fact very well be legitimate and reproducible. The point, however, is that it DOES NOT MATTER. Converting energy from electric form to H2 and back to electric form will ALWAYS be worse (more energy losses) than using the electricity directly. Yes, it is a law of nature. No amount of design or engineering, intelligent or otherwise, can change the laws of nature.

There is a joke in there, but everything I sad here is the plain truth.

Here's what get's me this guy says he can daisy chain these fuel cells but he only demonstrates that he's getting .91 volt, but he's using a 9 volt battery.

http://www.youtube.com/embed/Mi9tiJVtVLU

What am I missing here. Will that hydrogen fuel cell hold a charge for a long time, or does the voltage drop as soon as the battery is disconnected, because it needs a steady supply of hydrogen gas passing through the fuel cell?

What about making electrodes out of Wadsleyite and Woodenite?

ELECTRICAL CONDUCTIVITY OF OLIVINE, WADSLEYITE, AND RINGWOODITE UNDER UPPER-MANTLE CONDITIONS

Geophysical models show that electrical conductivity in Earth's mantle rises about two orders of magnitude through the transition zone in the depth range 410 to 660 kilometers. Impedance measurements obtained on Mg1.8Fe0.2SiO4 olivine, wadsleyite, and ringwoodite at up to 20 gigapascals and 1400°C show that the electrical conductivities of wadsleyite and ringwoodite are similar and are almost two orders of magnitude higher than that of olivine. A conductivity-depth profile to 660 kilometers, based on these laboratory data, shows a conductivity increase of almost two orders of magnitude across the 410-kilometer discontinuity; such a profile favors a two-layer model for the upper mantle. Activation enthalpies of 1.2 to 1.7 electron volts permit appreciable lateral variations of conductivity with lateral temperature variations.