Harvesting 'limitless' hydrogen from self-powered cells

Brandon

Brandon

Legend Of The Universe
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"There are bacteria that occur naturally in the environment that are able to release electrons outside of the cell, so they can actually produce electricity as they are breaking down organic matter," explained co-author Bruce Logan, from Pennsylvania State University, US.

"We use those microbes, particularly inside something called a microbial fuel cell (MFC), to generate electrical power.
"We can also use them in this device, where they need a little extra power to make hydrogen gas.

"What that means is that they produce this electrical current, which are electrons, they release protons in the water and these combine with electrons."

(More info....)
 

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I'm not sure about the logistics of this. You'd have to culture a ton of this bacteria just to power a single house. And the excess hydrogen gas is not a good thing. While, it's an interesting discovery and could be used to power, say a spaceship, I'm going to stick with wind, water, and solar for electricity. There more than enough of what's abundant already to power the entire world.
 
Sunfyre7896 said:
I'm not sure about the logistics of this. You'd have to culture a ton of this bacteria just to power a single house. And the excess hydrogen gas is not a good thing. While, it's an interesting discovery and could be used to power, say a spaceship, I'm going to stick with wind, water, and solar for electricity. There more than enough of what's abundant already to power the entire world.
Click to expand...
I think it's always good to explore new technologies.
Even wind, water and/or solar power isn't as efficient and it should be.
 
Except that there's a large variety of photovoltaic technologies with amazing conversion rates (not sure but I think I read about tech with up to 80% efficiency -- might've been a research project though that's not ready for mass production yet).

Hydrogen can be used to drive cars (the so-called fuel cell technology). Hydrogen-powered cars already exist, only the infrastructure is a still a problem.

The EV-1 project was killed b/c California shifted from favoring electric to hydrogen some years ago.

So, a technology creating hydrogen and electricity is very very interesting.

The question is whether they can get this thing mass produced.
 
The recent energy crisis served to emphasize the urgent need for a replacement for fossil fuels. The best known candidate to replace petroleum as the main fuel of the 21st Century automotive industry is hydrogen. Hydrogen can be found in great abundance (mainly as part of water); it does not pollute the air as it burns and it is more energetic then most existing fuels. The main reason this promising substitute for petroleum has not reached the main market is the staggering costs of producing and transporting it.
As mentioned, the main source for hydrogen production is water. Today, the most common method of production is electrolysis. Electrolysis decomposes the water molecules to its components (hydrogen and oxygen) by passing a strong electric current through it. This process is relatively simple but it requires a significant amount of electricity and thus is currently considered to be too expensive for large scale production of hydrogen.
http://www.isracast.com/article.aspx?id=51
 
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