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Old 1st-August-2008, 04:34 AM
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From Forbes:

"Nocera's discovery--a cheap and easy way to store energy that he thinks will be used to change solar power into a mainstream energy source--will be published in the journal Science on Friday. "This is the nirvana of what we've been talking about for years," said Nocera, the Henry Dreyfus Professor of Energy at MIT. "Solar power has always been a limited, far-off solution. Now we can seriously think about solar power as unlimited--and soon."

"Plants catch light and turn it into an electric current, then use that energy to excite catalysts that split water into hydrogen and oxygen during what is called photosynthesis' light cycle. The energy is then used during the dark cycle to allow the plant to build sugars used for growth and energy storage."

"Nocera and Matthew Kanan, a postdoctoral fellow in Nocera's lab, focused on the water-splitting part of photosynthesis. They found cheap and simple catalysts that did a remarkably good job. They dissolved cobalt and phosphate in water and then zapped it with electricity through an electrode. The cobalt and phosphate form a thin-film catalyst around the electrode that then use electrons from the electrode to split the oxygen from water. The oxygen bubbles to the surface, leaving a proton behind."

Click on link for the full story:

Solar Energy, All Night Long - Forbes.com


This could be big news.
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Old 1st-August-2008, 07:09 AM
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Looks great. Let me read the entire report.
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Old 3rd-August-2008, 10:43 PM
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Here we go fellas: this is it!

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Old 3rd-August-2008, 11:01 PM
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The problems with implementation of all these scientific “discoveries” of potential relevance to sustainable energy, is that they are based on experimental data obtained under funded laboratory-research conditions, so even when they are technically feasible, there are always issues related to the economics of producing them at a large enough scale to have an impact on the practical realities of technologies for energy generation.
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Old 4th-August-2008, 07:32 AM
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While in general it seems like
1) Still lot of ground need to be covered!

2) The 2nd reaction mentioned in the articles uses Platinum which may make the entire project feasible to unviable (maybe)

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Nocera's discovery is still a science experiment. It needs plenty of engineering before it can be a useful device. The cobalt and phosphate at the center of Nocera's work is cheap and plentiful, but the hydrogen reaction uses platinum, which is rare and expensive. The electrode needs to be improved so the oxygen-making process can speed up. And the system needs to be integrated into some kind of electricity-producing device, ideally powered by solar or wind on one end and a fuel cell on the other.
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Old 4th-August-2008, 05:24 PM
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Cheaper fuel cell on the way
Cheaper fuel cell on the way (ABC News in Science)
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