NewNergy

NewNergy discusses the latest inventions, innovations and breakthroughs in the energy & environmental sciences.

A New Catalyst For Efficient Hydrogen Fuel

A novel catalyst developed at MIT laboratory, one that takes inspiration from the photosynthetic pathways within plant cells to split water into H2 and O2, allowing the H2 to be used as fuel.Artificial oxygen evolving complexes (OECs) tend to be highly unstable, so labs concentrate on making them last longer with exotic and costly materials. This not only pushes up the financial costs, it also makes it harder to push electrons into them, lowering efficiency.

Nature, on the other hand, uses a simple inorganic redox core that self-assembles from water. It's unstable, so plants repair and replace their OECs every 30 minutes or so, and that's what Nocera's artificial OEC does too. Instead of Mn and Ca, it uses Co and Pi, works in sea water, dirty water, or a glass of water, and repairs itself spontaneously!When coupled with more widespread solar panels and more efficient fuel cells, Nocera believes that this CoPi catalyst would provide a household's daily fuel needs from 8 liters of water.

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  In the beginning, there were algae,
but there was no oil Then, from algae came oil.
Now, the algae are still there, but oil is fast depleting
In future, there will be no oil, but there will still be algae  
So, doesn't it make sense to explore if we can again get oil from algae?
This is what we try to do at Oilgae.com - explore the potential of getting oil from algae