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Punchline: nearly as good as platinum, without being expensive like platinum. Not sure whether it's actually easy and cheap to make in large quantities. Still l
by planetguy 14y ago
Punchline: nearly as good as platinum, without being expensive like platinum. Not sure whether it's actually easy and cheap to make in large quantities. Still lots of other problems with hydrogen as a fuel.
If it were really likely to be incredibly useful, there'd be a patent number in this article, not a reference to a publication in Angewandte Chemie.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- ams6110 14y agoAlso: requires external electricity ... exceeding the minimum required by thermodynamics Of course, there's no getting around those pesky laws of thermodynamics.
- dReid1991 14y agoRight, so with the perfect catalyst, you get as much energy out as you put in. With imperfect catalysts (anything real), you have to apply a voltage higher than when thermodynamics says is necessary to get the reaction to happen at an appreciable rate. The excess voltage cannot be recovered. The better the catalyst, the lower the excess voltage necessary, so a cheap and very effective catalyst essentially promises an efficient way to store and transport energy as hydrogen gas, which would be excellent.
- bane 14y agoYour platinum, water connection made me think again about the recently announced space mining venture for some reason...
- InclinedPlane 14y agoIt's a good reason. The cheaper and easier it is to split water the more cost effective it will be to manufacture Oxygen and Hydrogen from in situ water ice resources throughout the Solar System (on Mars, on the moon, or on an asteroid). The uses of Water and Oxygen for inhabited structures in orbit should be obvious, but liquid Oxygen and Hydrogen are also quite excellent rocket propellants which would be equally valuable on orbit.