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Spinach Could Be Used For Hydrogen Fuel

Posted by Roblimo on from the energy-and-vitamins-in-one-healthy-package dept.

An anonymous reader writes "If Popeye had made alternative fuels, he'd have probably come up with something like this. Researchers from Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) have developed a system that converts solar energy directly into hydrogen using the common spinach plant."

10 of 105 comments (clear)

  1. More info by ThreePhones · · Score: 5, Informative

    Here's the more detailed press release. They're using proteins extracted from spinach and they plan to eventually produce them synthetically. The spinach doesn't directly produce the hydrogen.

  2. Re:sounds like ethanol all over again by mspohr · · Score: 3, Informative
    I know it's too much to ask you to actually read the article but this method does not convert spinach to fuel. It uses a spinach protein as a catalyst to produce hydrogen. If you recall, catalysts are not consumed, they facilitate reactions. In fact, TFA says that the spinach protein membrane is self healing.

    Popeye was really on to something.

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  3. Re:Stop wasting food by Rylz · · Score: 2

    No need to kill anyone just fewer children due to high costs.

    Too bad that doesn't actually work in practice. It's lower income communities and countries that have the highest birth rates.

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    Sometimes you've gotta roll the hard six.
  4. Hydrogen != Green by pr0f3550r · · Score: 2
    Hydrogen's effects on the upper atmosphere is not yet well known but there are indicators that it is bad, very bad. They only reason sheeple are jumping on the hydrogen band wagon is because:

    Hydrogen Fuel != Fossil Fuel

    Fossil Fuel == Bad

    Therefore (they conclude):

    Hydrogen == Good

    The proponents of Hydrogen Fuel say that the only waste product in the burning of H2 and O2 is H2O but this is NOT true. Because you do not get a 100% efficient burn and because H2 is very leaky stuff even in a fuel cell, the other waste product they fail to mention is the fuel itself. So the question is what happens to H2 and O3 in the upper atmosphere? We were is such a rush to eliminate CFCs (quite heavy molecules in comparison) because of their effects should they reach the ozone. How ironic that so many now turn to H2 as a panacea of clean energy when it can be demonstrated that it affects on ozone and unspent and leaky H2 has no where to go but up. http://eands.caltech.edu/articles/LXVI/H2.html

    1. Re:Hydrogen != Green by Black+Gold+Alchemist · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Please try zinc instead. Zinc-air technology is amazing. It is the most efficient round trip fuel technology I've seen. If we moved all (or even some) hydrogen research dollars to zinc air, it would win. See for example, this bus: zinc air fuel cell bus.

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    2. Re:Hydrogen != Green by mark-t · · Score: 2

      Hydrogen that leaks out into the atmosphere will readily combine with available oxygen to form water again. And although water vapor can indeed deplete ozone, it is worth noting that the process of extracting hydrogen from water also produces oxygen as well, which will typically be released back into the atmosphere, some of which in turn would form ozone during thunderstorms, keeping the system quite balanced.

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    3. Re:Hydrogen != Green by pr0f3550r · · Score: 3, Interesting
      Lightning from thunderstorms produces ozone in the troposphere. Ozone in the troposphere is a pollutant and causes respiratory ailments in animal life. Moreover, it is too volatile to ever hope to make it 'back home' to the stratosphere. Lightning does not build the ozone layer but rather radiation from space. The problem with H2 is that it does NOT combine with O2 unless burned which it cannot do unless it is in concentrations of >4%. It is, however, reactive with ozone and water in the upper atmosphere is a bad thing.

      Part of the reason for the hole in the ozone layer above the poles in the winter and spring is due to the fact that it is, at times, too cold for ozone to form as a stable layer. So a reduction in the temperature of the stratosphere due to water in the upper atmosphere can cause an additional decay. H2 recombining with O3 produces water which lowers the temperature of the upper atmosphere causing further depletion of the ozone. Additionally, oxygen is heavier than nitrogen so the process of 'balancing' the system only serves to deplete the stratosphere of oxygen in all forms.

      Nobody, to my knowledge, has even studied the affects of ground sourced H2 and existing monatomic oxygen in the mesosphere. Lastly, leaking and unspent H2 which doesn't react with ozone doesn't 'build up' in the stratosphere but rather it goes into space leaving the 'balance' you mention unanswered and having the effect of stranding the oxygen on the planet. Remember that Oxygen is a pollutant too and at 35% (we are currently at 21%) we get massive fires from a highly combustable atmosphere and huge spiders and frogs.

      I accept that Hydrogen power is a better alternative for the time being to that burning fossil fuels at an unsustainable rate. But it is so popular to say that hydrogen is green and the answer to all our problems when there is this caveat and very little has been done to properly research the downside.

      PS. I think it would take a long time for us to turn that much water to Oxygen through leaking H2 into space and thereby making massive frogs. Although it might be fun to see!

  5. Re:That's nothing. by underqualified · · Score: 2

    three trips per can.....to the toilet.

  6. bah by Goldsmith · · Score: 2

    The efficiency of photosynthetic proteins is terrible compared to inorganic photocatalysts. The only advantage biological systems have is that the only reasonable room temperature catalyst for photoconversion of carbon dioxide in air is biological. If you only want to make hydrogen, commercial systems already beat the theoretical highest possible efficiency of biology.

  7. Fuel from plant is probably a lost cause by 2Bits · · Score: 2

    I know people are working hard to try to find an alternative to fossil fuel, but I believe using plant as an alternative is probably a lost cause. Whether you try to create methanol from plant (or food) or as the article suggests, use the spinach protein to extract hydrogen from water, is not very efficient way to create fuel. Sure, plants are "renewable", but at what cost? The gain in fuel is not enough to offset the cost, not only the economic cost of producing the fuel, but the environment, societal cost too. You may argue that we simply haven't found an efficient way to do it, that's all, but we eventually will. However, the cost to environment and the ripple that it creates through societies (e.g. rise of food prices) will always be there. Unless, of course, we could harvest plants/food massively, at very low cost, and without effect to the planet. That is a tall order, by itself.

    I believe there are better ways, which we already know now, and which have lower long term cost. Nonetheless, the research project mentioned in TFA is still very cool.