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Scientists Use Microbes to Produce Hydrogen
An anonymous reader writes " Environmental engineers at Penn State University and a research scientist at Ion Power Inc. have created an electrically-assisted microbial fuel cell that can be used to produce hydrogen from organic material. The amount of electricity needed for the process is less than the amount required to power a standard cell phone. This advancement can be used to produce hydrogen as a byproduct of water treatment. " Coverage at ScienceDaily as well.
Is this supposed to be a cheaper way of cleaning wastewater, a more effecient way of creating hydrogen for fuel cells, or some combination of both? The article never really goes in depth on exactly why these bacteria are so good.
I, for one, welcome our new karma-whore sig writing overlords
However, giving the bacteria a small assist with a tiny amount of electricity -- about 0.25 volts or a small fraction of the voltage needed to run a typical 6 volt cell phone -- they can leap over the fermentation barrier and convert a "dead end" fermentation product, acetic acid, into carbon dioxide and hydrogen.
I agree, it is written poorly.
That's exactly what this is (if worded incorrectly). This is a hydrogen creator, for fuel cells.
A good example of how this could be used in the real world:
Instead of gas tanks, we carry around tanks full of dense wastewater. Using something like this as a converter (if it was fast enough), it would allow us to have the benefits of fuel cells, without the storage problem (Hydrogen being a gas).
According to a commercial for a widget you can use to jumpstart your car through the cigarette lighter, the volt is a unit of energy. Said the commercial:
Your normal car battery only has 12 volts of energy [person places multimeter leads on car battery, and the readout says 12 volts]. But the {insert product name here} has 48 volts of energy!
Another classic was the commercial for the ion-producing air filter that said their product filtered dust out of the air because it was electrostatically charged... like a magnet!
Finally, there are commercials on TV now for a flashlight that you can shake to charge, using a solenoid inside the flashlight to convert your mechanical energy into electrical energy. During the commercial, they actually put the integral form of Faraday's Induction Law on the screen. Though they used the most cumbersome form of the equation they could find, they were actually correct. I was impressed!
...this is good if it pans out. Considering how Global Peak Oil might have been already reached, or if not, we're close to it, we're going to be needing a replacement for petroleum and soon.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
I love the peanut butter jar tech, I also love the comment that it requires .25 V, which is just tiny fraction of 6V. For that matter its an even smaller fraction of the 25,000 V in my TVs flyback transformer. I get that .25 V is small but at how many amps? .001 mA, or 1000kA the pouwer requirement is vastly different. On the other hand this could be a neat way for cities to deal with sewage.
I used to have a cool sig, back when I cared
Perhaps use a small solar panel as the catlyst voltage to drive the reaction ? Maybe even a smallish wind turbine. Combining these may be the key to making something like this viable.
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