Scientists Create The First Artificial Leaf

[alidan]

[citation][nom]bayouboy[/nom]Don't make stuff up. This is not the first artificial leaf. That honor goes to John Turner of the U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colorado almost a decade ago. Some one I have personally met while attending school at the Colorado School of Mines. This is explicitly stated in the source article. This artificial leaf is the first practical one.If this technology is so amazing, why is it only targeted at third world countries. Surely if this process mimics plants in the capturing of solar radiation to convert into energy, it should be easily scaled up into generating large quantities of energy to power cities.Alas, what is not mentioned is that this technology is far less efficient than solar cell technology and more than likely will not be a replacement due to inherent efficiency losses.[/citation]

it potentially can. with the rate we shrink things like cpus, i can see that at some point we translate that to other things like solar tech, and batteries. however solar tech will never be efficiant enough on the earths surface to be a practical. and even for a more practical application, it requires FAR more space than we have to offer.

 

[pocketdrummer]

This is cool, but it seems like a less desirable design than a simple solar cell. Why add water into the equation if a solar cell only needs the sun to create energy? Not to mention the constantly draining supply of fresh water...

Also, this would not work in more secluded areas where they have to walk everyday to get to the water...

 

[Lekko]

So.. this makes every war in third world countries like a Michael Bay movie now?

Baysplosions everywhere!

 

[watcha]

[citation][nom]sabot00[/nom]Do you know what burning is?Probably not, it's oxidation, what happens when you oxidize hydrogen?It forms a covalent bond with O in a ratio of 2 to 1.H2O, so basically, you put 1 mole of water in, you get 2 moles of H and 1 mole of O back, then you burn the H, it recombines with O, and you get 1 mole of water back PLUS heat energy from the burning.So basically the only thing that is really lost is Sunlight.[/citation]

I know very well what can be done with Oxygen and Hydrogen. You are assuming 100% efficiency and zero loss in converting the Oxygen and Hydrogen back to water, and you are failing to consider the case where there is a failure (which would be inevitable if this device was used on a mass scale). If you read my comment carefully you should realise that nothing I have said is contradictory to the fuel cell process (which is common knowledge). I simply stated that if any of the water is converted to Oxygen and Hydrogen (in a long term way) it will deplete our water levels. There's an IF there, and my main point was that it doesn't matter which type of water is used.

 

[watcha]

[citation][nom]maestintaolius[/nom]Finally, even if we did 'lose' 100 million gallons of water a day through some unspecified Illuminati Reverse Vampire process it'd take us about billion years (based on the earth being 0.023% water by mass) for us to use all the water on the planet (at which point the sun will have made the planet unlivable anyway). If you're concerned about us running out of water after a billion years of use, I can't imagine how worried you are about running out of oil in a few hundred.[/citation]

Firstly - if this device was used on a massive scale and some kind of leak did occur, due to mechanical failure, or someone accidentally dropping a bottle on it, etc etc etc the quantity would massively exceed 100 million gallons lost. It would be in the billions.

Secondly - Your calculation is totally flawed. You're working out how long it'd take to RUN OUT of water entirely, completely missing the fact that in the mean time, sea levels would drop, rivers would dry up, millions of people would die of thirst (millions more people than do today). Whole ecosystems would be massively affected, weather patterns would change, the knock-on effects of even a relatively minor reduction of water (on a global scale) are massive.

Finally - oil isn't what we live off. Running out of oil does not threaten our lives directly, it threatens it indirectly in the form of the potential for war. Water, on the other hand, IS what we live off, so running out of that is NECESSARILY disastrous.

All of the above being said, I do recognise that if this system can prove itself to minimise the risk of inefficiency - ie all the hydrogen and oxygen are ALWAYS converted back to water, it can serve a valuable purpose

 

[Guest]

watcha and TA152H: Internet retards.

Seriously watcha, if the world is full of people like you I should hope we do suddenly run out water and everyone dies.

 

[tomaz99]

[citation][nom]loomis86[/nom]I can't believe the utter fools commenting here. If a small amount of hydrogen is leaked out of the containment vessel, it goes to the upper atmosphere and never comes back. Everytime that happens, you lose water forever. Multiply that small loss times billions of people all using hydrogen in a hydrogen economy and some day YOU WILL RUN OUT OF WATER ON PLANET EARTH.[/citation]

heh...so funny; gave me a good laugh

 

[watcha]

[citation][nom]I made it through pre school[/nom]watcha and TA152H: Internet retards.Seriously watcha, if the world is full of people like you I should hope we do suddenly run out water and everyone dies.[/citation]

Again, if you read my comments, I'm not claiming we're going to run out of water.

Not convinced about your name, tbh.

 

[lemonade4]

We'll never see it come alive because it won't have a continuous stream of income after sales, like fossil fuels.

 

[watcha]

[citation][nom]Ramar[/nom]Please give me any source that claims the earth loses 3 kilograms of hydrogen a second[/citation]

http/www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=how-planets-lose-their-atmospheres

Just to be clear - by doing this I'm not agreeing with all of TA152H comments, but it's fairly common knowledge in the scientific community that Hydrogen is lost from the Earths atmosphere.

 

[thomaseron]

I guess we'd better *puts on sunglasses* leaf this alone.

YYYYEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!!!

 

[watcha]

[citation][nom]thomaseron[/nom]I guess we'd better *puts on sunglasses* leaf this alone. YYYYEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!!![/citation]

It's what I do, Thomas. It's what I do.

 

[back_by_demand]

[citation][nom]TA152H[/nom]This sounds horrible.The basis for life is water. So, we want to consume it by the billions of gallons every day. Then, this house will have pure oxygen around, and pure hydrogen, which is volatile. Presumably, the hydrogen would escape at some point, and the Earth can not keep hydrogen atoms, so it would leave our planet, never to return. Something seems wrong. We're complaining about not enough drinkable water, and then we want to liberate from the earth the hydrogen contained in it. When you consider how many people live in this world, if you're pulling down hundreds of millions of gallons of water a day, you don't think there's going to be some climate change from all this loss of water over a period of time? The only thing is, it's not clear if the water is reconstituted. If it is, no problem, but if it's lost, it's insanity.[/citation]
Wow, where the fudge did you learn your kiddy-science
Hydrogen leave the Earth?
Get the f**k out

Firstly the hydrogen and oxygen are harvested, not just allowed to form thick clouds in the garden around your house.

Secondly when hydrogen is burnt the waste product is water (because we all know that burning is just a fast form of bonding it with oxygen in the air, oxygen + hydrogen = water), so it will not run out ever.

Thirdly, even if we did suspend the laws of conservation of enegry for a moment and pretended that hydrogen could just "leak" into space, do you know how much water is on the planet? Even if 7 billion people allowed their entire daily supply of hydrogen to escape without burning, we might run out of water in the seas around the same time the sun collapses in about 5 billion years and deep fries the Earth anyway.

 

[watcha]

[citation][nom]back_by_demand[/nom]Thirdly, even if we did suspend the laws of conservation of enegry for a moment and pretended that hydrogen could just "leak" into space[/citation]

Hydrogen leaking into space is not a myth, it's scientific fact, and it doesn't in any way contradict the law of the conservation of energy. There is disagreement over the rate at which the Hydrogen is escaping, but no debate over whether it is or not.

Again, though, please don't think I'm agreeing with TA152H's comment, I agree that in this particular example, in theory, all of the Hydrogen and Oxygen should be converted back to water again.

 

[back_by_demand]

[citation][nom]watcha[/nom]Hydrogen leaking into space is not a myth, it's scientific fact, and it doesn't in any way contradict the law of the conservation of energy. There is disagreement over the rate at which the Hydrogen is escaping, but no debate over whether it is or not.Again, though, please don't think I'm agreeing with TA152H's comment, I agree that in this particular example, in theory, all of the Hydrogen and Oxygen should be converted back to water again.[/citation]
Can anyone tell me the rate at which the Earth re-absorbs hydrogen from space due to gravity attraction?

 

[watcha]

[citation][nom]back_by_demand[/nom]Can anyone tell me the rate at which the Earth re-absorbs hydrogen from space due to gravity attraction?[/citation]

If we define the hydrogen leaking into space as hydrogen with the necessary escape velocity to overcome the Earth's gravitational pull - then none of the leaked hydrogen will be reabsorbed.

If we define the hydrogen leaking into space as hydrogen which temporarily leaves the Earth's atmosphere but is later recaptured due to gravity (if this is possible), then the answer would be some, but not all.

The net result for the Earth in either scenario is a reduction in Hydrogen in the outer atmosphere. The rate of this reduction is currently very low, due to there being very little Hydrogen in the outer atmosphere.

Hope this helps

 

[back_by_demand]

http/www.universetoday.com/25822/water-on-earth/
Mass of water on Earth is 1.35 x 10 to the power 18 meric tonnes

So even if every single person from the 7 billion that he have were to take 1000 metric tonnes each, convert 100% of all the hydrogen and pump it directly into space every year...

We would run out of water in around, and you can double check my maths at any time, 19.2 million years

OK, doomsday sayers please STFU and sit down.

 

[watcha]

[citation][nom]back_by_demand[/nom]http/www.universetoday.com/25822/water-on-earth/Mass of water on Earth is 1.35 x 10 to the power 18 meric tonnesSo even if every single person from the 7 billion that he have were to take 1000 metric tonnes each, convert 100% of all the hydrogen and pump it directly into space every year...We would run out of water in around, and you can double check my maths at any time, 19.2 million yearsOK, doomsday sayers please STFU and sit down.[/citation]

You're working out how long it'd take to run out of water entirely, completely missing the fact that in the mean time, sea levels would drop, rivers would dry up, millions if not billions of people would die of thirst (millions more people than do today). Whole ecosystems would be massively affected, weather patterns would change, the knock-on effects of even a relatively minor reduction of water (on a global scale) are massive. This could accelerate the process even further. Additionally, the reduced water levels would increase CO2 in the atmosphere, accelerating global warming probably beyond recoverable levels.

Just for your info - your calculation is wrong. If there are 1.39 x 10 to the power 18 tonnes of water on the planet, and all 7 billion people use 1,000 tonnes per year, that is an annual usage of 7 x 10 to the power 12. This gives us a figure of just under 200,000 years for ALL the water to be lost, at that rate. (198,571, to be precise).

It's a pointless calculation anyway, but hey may aswell do it right.

I think we're all pretty much agreed that so long as the device converts the Hydrogen and Oxygen back to water again - it wont pose any threat to our environment, no need to say any more about it IMO

 

[jgutz2006]

[citation][nom]Ramar[/nom]ITT Science does incredible things, internet tough guys are TOO COOL FOR SOLAR ENERGY CH-CH-CH-YEEAEEEAH.I can't wait for commercial release, I want a self-sustaining house but think solar panels are ugly as sin.[/citation]

a roof full of these cheesy looking leafs will look much better than a solar panel... haha

 

[freggo]

[citation][nom]sag0[/nom]Can you smoke it?[/citation]

If course you can smoke it !
That's how they make those electronic cigarettes !