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Researchers Convert Biomass To Hydrogen Using Sunlight (rdmag.com)
New submitter omaha393 writes: Cambridge chemists have developed a new catalytic approach capable of converting biomass into hydrogen gas using only sunlight as an energy source. The method converts lignocellulose, one of Earth's most abundant biomaterials, into hydrogen gas and organic byproducts when in a basic water and in the presence of the cadmium sulfide/oxide nanoparticle catalysts. The new method, published in Nature Energy, offers a relatively cheap fuel alternative that researchers are looking to scale up to meet consumer demands at the industrial level. Per R&D Magazine: "'With this in place we can simply add organic matter to the system and then, provided it's a sunny day, produce hydrogen fuel,' says joint lead author David Wakerley. 'Future development can be envisioned at any scale.'" In addition to lignocellulose, the team was also able to produce hydrogen gas using unprocessed material including wood, paper and leaves. Further reading: New Atlas; ScienceDaily
Article is very short on details. How much hydrogen can they extract per ton of biomass? What's the cost of the active ingredients?
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
The Photo-catalyst is Cadmium based.
Solar-driven reforming of lignocellulose to H2 with a CdS/CdOx photocatalyst
The nanoparticle is able to absorb energy from solar light and use it to undertake complex chemical reactions. In this experiment, it rearranges the atoms in the water and biomass to form hydrogen fuel and other organic chemicals, including formic acid and carbonate
Yeah can't see heavy metal contamination being a problem with that witch's brew.
"The system operates under visible light, is stable beyond six days and is even able to reform unprocessed lignocellulose, such as wood and paper, under solar irradiation at room temperature, presenting an inexpensive route to drive aqueous proton reduction to H2 through waste biomass oxidation."
It uses Cadmium compounds in water. With the use of such an environmental toxin, I sincerely hope it's stable for a lot longer than six days.
The ancient boffins of Jupiter experimented with this just before someone left one switched on.
You can stop most of that shit by attaching it to carbon. I know, crazy talk...
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Hydrogen is not only applicable to hydrogen cars (where you're correct, it doesn't make for a very good fuel choice). It's an incredibly important chemical in industry. As one example among countless, it's one of the two feedstocks (the other being nitrogen) in the Haber process for producing ammonia, which forms the root of all industrial production of nitrated products on Earth (particularly fertilizers). Right now Haber process hydrogen almost exclusively comes from natural gas reforming (CH4 + H2O -> 1 CO + 3 H2; CO + H2O -> CO2 + H2).
Stale pastry is hollow succor to one who is bereft of ostrich.
Lignocellulose is only considered a food if you're a termite.
So they set up a mulch pile.
The new method, published in Nature Energy, offers a relatively cheap fuel alternative that researchers are looking to scale up to meet consumer demands at the industrial level.
Whether it is cheap or not depends on how expensive it was to create the biomass. Since most biomass used commercially is basically a conversion of diesel fuel to biomass, it's not immediately clear whether or not this technology would actually be cheap. Perhaps as a means of using excess/surplus biomass that would otherwise be wasted it could be useful but even then it's not entirely clear. WAY too much glossing over details and naively optimistic future projections in the article.
I would also be curious what they do with the carbon in the biomass since that is a nontrivial component of any biomass. Conveniently they do not mention that little detail
Article is very short on details. How much hydrogen can they extract per ton of biomass? What's the cost of the active ingredients?
Not only that, what do they do with the carbon that is left over after the reaction? Biomass tends to be rather heavy in carbon and it has to go somewhere.
From that example you should know that toxic catalysts don't always end up in the end product - especially since here the end product is a gas.
Umm you are aware that there will be waste and byproducts from the reaction, right? Not the least of which will be the carbon from the biomass. Just because the toxic stuff doesn't end up in the finished product doesn't mean it isn't a problem or can be ignored.
Also, there were some plans that natgas storage could be repurposed for hydrogen or hydrogen+natgas seasonal storage. Produce in summer, consume in CCGTs in winter.
Ezekiel 23:20
http://backtothefuture.wikia.c...
Future development can be envisioned at any scale.
How many past discoveries were advertised as the solution to [insert problem] only to be found that in fact they did not scale.
Add an oxygen here and there and you're back to CO2. Might as well just burn the stuff like we started out to do. No need for the Rube Goldberg stuff.
Cut, kill, dig, drill.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
While you are correct in that Cadmium is a Nasty Chemical, it is also something used for a variety of industrial processes and thus represents well known technology. Yes, you can screw things up - and mining / production of cadmium and other light metals needs to be rethought and closely monitored - but in an of itself it is something that we should be able to handle.
Murphy was an optimist......
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
The research team used different types of biomass in their experiments including pieces of wood, paper and leaves
Have gnu, will travel.
"The process is 5-10 years away from commercially viable production but has the potential to change the world as we know it."
"I say we take off, nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."
Yeah, if I were going to get hydrogen from water I would take a solar panel and hook it up to a floating platform sitting in the ocean. Underneath there would be two gold or platinum plated electrodes, one of which I would leave free and the other of which I would put in a vertical tube. On top I would have a small pump (also run by the solar cell, or maybe powered by a small wind turbine since there is usually a wind over the ocean) that compressed the hydrogen into a collection tank. That would produce hydrogen at a very, very predictable rate, fully compressed and ready to use. A small hydrogen powered boat (powered indirectly by the same solar cells) could make the rounds every week or so to replace the tanks and bring the tanks ashore for use. The rafts themselves would attract fish and de facto cool the ocean underneath. And best of all, they would produce the hydrogen for only four or five times what the electricity that produced it was worth!
Now to patent this, get a government grant, and fight the NIMBY battle with all of the boaters and fisherpeople who don't want to see the oceans and sounds scattered with floating platforms covered with solar cells and hydrogen gas tanks. I'll be rich!
Oh, wait. You mean that this idea has been around for over forty years now?
https://books.google.com/books...
You mean that it is developed to the point where one could produce hydrogen peroxide, or release the CO2 in the ocean water and capture THAT at the same time we generate the hydrogen (for an even larger multiplier for the actual value of the electricity)? You mean that even a patent troll would have a hard time locking this one down? You mean that there really are some people, somewhere, who have heard of the second law of thermodynamics or the first law of economics (that in business, one's product has to sell for more than the cost of production)?
So what? As long as we have a government, these will not be obstacles...
rgb
Even when the experts all agree, they may well be mistaken. --- Bertrand Russell.
Most biomass is either trash destined for a landfill, a byproduct of growing food, or the end product of sewage treatment. Converting it into a clean fuel to generate electricity is a win-win.
In principle yes but it's not so easy in practice, primarily for economic reasons. Details matter when it comes to this stuff. This isn't our first rodeo with this waste stream energy reclamation or supposedly miracle bio-fuels. I wouldn't dismiss any of it out of hand but I'm not going to get excited without a LOT more details.
So it's up to you as to what you want to do with them after that - industrial feedstocks, reaction and sequestration, or even simple exhaustion as CO2, with the knowledge that at least it's a closed fuel cycle (CO2 taken in during growth being released back to the air).
It's probably NOT a closed fuel cycle. You're not considering the entire fuel cycle. Most industrial scale biomass is really a conversion of diesel fuel to the biomass. Farmers use tractors and fertilizers which get their energy from oil pumped from the ground. Sure there is some photosynthesis in there too but the oil derived hydrocarbons are a non-trivial percent of the total carbon footprint. So the fuel cycle isn't closed because the carbon doesn't go back into the ground.
So you are shifting the goalposts away from cadmium?
Not remotely. Just pointing out that the argument that just because the toxic stuff doesn't end up in the primary product (hydrogen here) it isn't the end of the discussion. You still have to deal with the waste streams and whatever they contain, whether it be cadmium, carbon, or something else.
https://theouterlinux.com/2016... Yes, it's my website, but there are links on this page to research papers.
Ya, I've been reading about it since the 1970s
Do not eat.
http://www.sciencelab.com/msds...
That's the point I addressed waaaaaaaaaaay above Crashdoxy. In the modern world we use all kinds of very toxic stuff in chemical processes and have a thing called waste management. It's kind of pathetic that you are using that angle just because the process looked a little "green" to you. Oh noes - there can't be anything toxic to deal with in industry you seem to be bleating - fucking pathetic. You are turning yourself into a ridiculous parody of the extremists of the people whose politics you do not like.
Are you sure you are not just doing this as a joke? Are you really as ridiculous as the words you spout?
Is it really some sort of suprise to you how toxic cadmium was or is that some pathetic faux suprise? If it's the former, that's kind of sad that you thought you knew enough to write your FUD attack above, if it's the latter - well that's just the icing on the cake of how utterly pathetic you are and you should really resolve whatever offline problems are making you but an utter festering prick in this place.