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The research paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-024-01480-8 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-024-01480-8 TLDR: They have found evidence of e
by adrian_b 2y ago
The research paper:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-024-01480-8 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-024-01480-8
TLDR:
They have found evidence of elemental oxygen production in a polymetallic nodule-covered abyssal seafloor in the Pacific Ocean.
However, for now they have identified neither how the dioxygen is produced nor which is the source of energy for this.
Their hypothesis for how the dioxygen is produced is that there may be a redox reaction between some metals in the polymetallic nodules, which might cause an electric current that could electrolyze the water.
However this hypothesis has very little value until an energy source is identified for it.
The voltage in a battery is not produced between metals in any state, but only between an oxidized metal and a reduced metal. The simplest batteries, like the AA or AAA batteries with saline or alkaline electrolyte, produce voltage by the reaction between reduced zinc and oxidized manganese.
So for a natural battery to form in those polymetallic nodules, some of the metals must be in a reduced state, and for them to be reduced, somewhere there should have been an energy source to provide energy for their reduction.
That must be determined to understand what happens.
- rapjr9 2y agoTheir sensors have batteries, I would think they'd want to eliminate that power source as a potential cause of oxygen production first. High pressure water has a way of getting into things. Also the sensor devices may have metals in them exposed to the sea water.
- yencabulator 2y agoI assume the same sensor design has been used all over the seabed, and only this area gets this anomalous reading.
- darig 2y ago[dead]
- buildbot 2y agoCould a piezoelectric effect be large enough to cause this?
- buildbot 2y agoSelf reply as it’s too late to edit, no, or only once at least - you’d have to cycle the pressure to get a new charge after discharge - which makes sense, you static pressure generation sounds too much like free energy. Although, thinking further, ocean pressure is not constant! It varies with tides and other events: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2018JC014108 https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/201... So no free energy issue, there could actually be some cycling effect due to the energy input from the sun/moon shifting tides.
- notfed 2y agoIn layman's terms: batteries don't last millions of years, so wtf?
- BiteCode_dev 2y agoBut also: wow, if we could do that at scale the same way, free hydrogen!