Scientists develop water splitter that runs on ordinary AAA battery

[nationalize the fed]

Mark Shwartz, Stanford University 8/22/2014

In 2015, American consumers will finally be able to purchase fuel cell cars from Toyota and other manufacturers. Although touted as zero-emissions vehicles, most of the cars will run on hydrogen made from natural gas, a fossil fuel that contributes to global warming.

Now scientists at Stanford Univ. have developed a low-cost, emissions-free device that uses an ordinary AAA battery to produce hydrogen by water electrolysis. The battery sends an electric current through two electrodes that split liquid water into hydrogen and oxygen gas. Unlike other water splitters that use precious-metal catalysts, the electrodes in the Stanford device are made of inexpensive and abundant nickel and iron.

"Using nickel and iron, which are cheap materials, we were able to make the electrocatalysts active enough to split water at room temperature with a single 1.5-V battery," said Hongjie Dai, a professor of chemistry at Stanford. "This is the first time anyone has used non-precious metal catalysts to split water at a voltage that low. It's quite remarkable, because normally you need expensive metals, like platinum or iridium, to achieve that voltage...

...The promise of hydrogen
Automakers have long considered the hydrogen fuel cell a promising alternative to the gasoline engine. Fuel cell technology is essentially water splitting in reverse. A fuel cell combines stored hydrogen gas with oxygen from the air to produce electricity, which powers the car. The only byproduct is water—unlike gasoline combustion, which emits carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas...>

Full Article: http://www.rdmag.com/videos/2014/08/scientists-develop-water-splitter-runs-ordinary-aaa-battery

Hydrogen Trivia: There are 22 LITRES of Hydrogen in ONE TABLESPOON of water

[Old Codger]

1. well

I didn't watch the video, but that idea has been around for a long time, using electric current to produce oxygen from any battery using almost any wire, one to each pole gets hydrogen from the negative and oxygen from the positive side. Some serious doubt as to how much can be derived from a AAA battery though.
I have a unit in my truck that does this as I drive, using power form the battery and alternator to do this, it bleeds the hydrogen off into my intake and enhances combustion... not a lot of gain but it is free using items I had sitting around my shop.

[nationalize the fed]

2. Nickel and iron

Hydrogen bashers like to say that because platinum is so expensive Fuel Cells will never be cost effective (Even though every single catalytic converter uses b/w 3 and 7 grams of Platinum and Toyota's new FCV uses ~30 grams.)

Lots of cheap nickel and iron= cheap green H2

Edit: And this "Notably, this was the first time ever reported to achieve a voltage of 1.5V for water electrolysis using non-precious catalysts for both electrodes."

This is just the start of fuel cell innovation.

[Old Codger]

3. Not a basher

I am a believer in hydrogen power being the answer to most of the power needed for automobiles... should have been developed long ago....

[nationalize the fed]

4. Not saying you were a H2 basher

sorry if it came across that way

I was just pointing out the cheap materials and the low voltage

Hydrogen is the future. Jack Nicholson knew in 1978

[rock]

5. But isn't the critical point how much energy is generated by this process?

That is, once the battery is exhausted producing hydrogen and the hydrogen oxidized to produce energy isn't the amount of energy no more than the 1.5 v battery could have produced directly. So what's the big deal?

[Old Codger]

6. that is

The biggest drawback to any of it. They have designed a hydrogen production system that can produce from solar energy and is in a self contained system that can be set up almost anywhere and can supply compressed hydrogen to autos.. have to look and see if I can find a link to that.
this is one of the systems out there now there are several others also.

http://www.airproducts.com/company/news-center/2014/03/0310-air-products-newest-hydrogen-fueling-station-filling-vehicles-at-honda.aspx

[NickB79]

7. "There are 22 LITRES of Hydrogen in ONE TABLESPOON of water"

At 9.5 BTU/liter, that's 209 BTU's.

For comparison, 22 liters of gasoline holds 663,000 BTU's.

Using volume with a gas of very low energy density isn't exactly the best unit to measure it's potential by.

[NickB79]

8. Well, it's a step up from using steel wool as a hydrogen fuel, I'll give you that