Scientist learn from plants how to split water into hydrogen and oxygen
Professor Leone Spiccia, Mr Robin Brimblecombe and Dr Annette Koo from Monash University teamed with Dr Gerhard Swiegers at the CSIRO and Professor Charles Dismukes at Princeton University to develop a system comprising a coating that can be impregnated with a form of manganese, a chemical essential to sustaining photosynthesis in plant life.
"We have copied nature, taking the elements and mechanisms found in plant life that have evolved over 3 billion years and recreated one of those processes in the laboratory," Professor Spiccia said.
"A manganese cluster is central to a plant's ability to use water, carbon dioxide and sunlight to make carbohydrates and oxygen. Man-made mimics of this cluster were developed by Professor Charles Dismukes some time ago, and we've taken it a step further, harnessing the ability of these molecules to convert water into its component elements, oxygen and hydrogen," Professor Spiccia said.
"The breakthrough came when we coated a proton conductor, called Nafion, onto an anode to form a polymer membrane just a few micrometres thick, which acts as a host for the manganese clusters."
"Normally insoluble in water, when we bound the catalyst within the pores of the Nafion membrane, it was stabilised against decomposition and, importantly, water could reach the catalyst where it was oxidised on exposure to light."
This process of "oxidizing" water generates protons and electrons, which can be converted into hydrogen gas instead of carbohydrates as in plants.
"Whilst man has been able to split water into hydrogen and oxygen for years, we have been able to do the same thing for the first time using just sunlight, an electrical potential of 1.2 volts and the very chemical that nature has selected for this purpose," Professor Spiccia said.
Testing revealed the catalyst assembly was still active after three days of continuous use, producing oxygen and hydrogen gas in the presence of water, an electrical potential and visible light.
Professor Spiccia said the efficiency of the system needed to be improved, but this breakthrough had huge potential. "We need to continue to learn from nature so that we can better master this process."
"Hydrogen has long been considered the ideal clean green fuel, energy-rich and carbon-neutral. The production of hydrogen using nothing but water and sunlight offers the possibility of an abundant, renewable, green source of energy for the future for communities across the world."
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- thekingbeyond
- added this
- added August 19, 2008
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cool... kinda common sense though
can't wait for 2nd generation "green" science
that's when things will start becoming not only sustainable, but beneficial and beautiful
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wait dont we already have a water problem, so why are we wasting more water by turning it into a power source. I just see if this form of making hydrogen cheaper becomes popluar in the future we are slowly wiping ourselves out...... drip by drop
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Hmm...cool idea. Sounds like it might be pretty effective once they improve the efficiency of the system.
Maybe it could be combined with solar...so while it's sunny out, the solar portion can take care of everything, then when it rains the proposed idea can be utilized? Only thing, might be pretty expensive.
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- myowndesignjf
- 5 months ago
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Any time we can learn from nature better ways to solve a problem is good. It takes steps to become a green society.
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- sublimeuniverse
- 5 months ago
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There is a natural Earth friendly solution to every problem. Our modern technology is finally coming full circle, the Plants know much.
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- thetrimsmith
- 5 months ago
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Intriguing and promising as this story is, someone saying, "We have copied nature,...", still seems damned creepy to me.
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awesome. isn't it cool how the answers to everything are all around us in nature?
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but i love driving my hummer limo all by myself...
really i was hoping that we'd copy jurassic park and clone dinosaurs and extinct plant life only to slaughter them all and wait around a couple million years for them to become oil. lets forget about going green and lets make oil a renewable energy!
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- satanskidney
- 5 months ago
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I wish the government would put their weight behind Hydrogen technologies instead of messing around with wind. We have to find a contender to take over from nuclear. Hydrogen seems like the strongest contender. 1.2 volts is nothing, but i wounder what the efficiency of the assembly actually was.
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- Jimmy_Underdog
- 5 months ago
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Forgive me for not understanding the process, but if salt water is used as fuel, and the exhaust is water, what happens to the salt?
I admit this is beautiful how finally were on natures side.-
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- fiat_lux088
- 5 months ago
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Amazing what we can learn from nature that seems so simple but is actually (to us) so complicated. I'm sure plants have so much more to teach us as well.
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Once again nature has saved our ass.
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- Logos51891
- 5 months ago
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Getting off the grid seems to becoming a reality. Domestic recycling of waste water will be an integral part of new home design and will supply ample water for hydrogen production.
My question is why we the people are willing to allow our government to give the oil companies billions to drill unneeded wells instead of targeting those billions on alternative energy projects that will create tens of thousands of jobs and save us hundreds of billions of dollars in the long term. Go figure.
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Why do all that and spend who knows how much trying to imitate nature?
Why not just use the plants and work with nature?
The technology sounds pretty exotic, but the whole idea just seems stupid to me. What do we need it for? What does it do that the plants don't do? And we don't have to spend a dime on research, testing or manufacturing if we use the plants, that has already been done for us.
