[HN Gopher] Chemists develop new way to split water
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Chemists develop new way to split water
Author : geox
Score : 63 points
Date : 2023-09-06 11:43 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.uni-muenster.de)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.uni-muenster.de)
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| Couple of quotes from the OP:
|
| "To produce hydrogen, water (H2O) can be converted into hydrogen
| gas (H2) by means of a series of chemical processes. However, as
| water molecules are very stable, splitting them into hydrogen and
| oxygen presents a big challenge to chemists. For it to succeed at
| all, the water first has to be activated using a catalyst - then
| it reacts more easily. A team of researchers led by Prof. Armido
| Studer at the Institute of Organic Chemistry at Munster
| University has developed a photocatalytic process in which water,
| under mild reaction conditions, is activated through triaryl
| phosphines and not, as in most other processes, through
| transition metal complexes."
|
| Also:
|
| "Dr. Jingjing Zhang, who carried out the experimental work, adds:
| "The hydrogen atoms of the activated water can be transferred to
| alkenes and arenes under very mild conditions, in so-called
| hydrogenation reactions." Hydrogenation reactions are enormously
| important in pharmaceutical research, in the agrochemical
| industry and in materials sciences."
|
| Suggesting applications might relate more to hidden enrichment
| than hydrogen gas production per se?
| [deleted]
| fakedang wrote:
| On a tangential note, how do you pronounce the second
| researcher's name? Zhang as to my knowledge is pronounced with
| a distinct "Jha" aspirated sound, correct?
|
| Back to the article though, from what I understand, the alkenes
| and arenes merely act as the catalyst for the reactions, so the
| article calling them the equivalent of hydrogenation reactions
| seems incorrect. Perhaps, a more equivalent term would be
| temporary hydrogenation.
| earthboundkid wrote:
| It sounds sort of like "Jong" or "Chang" with the a sound
| from Spanish not the a in "cat", but most Americans pronounce
| it like zang rhymes with tang, and mostly no one complains
| about it. I had a Chinese American friend who mostly
| introduced herself with the wrong pronunciation but after we
| talked about it, I saw her do an introduction with the right
| pronunciation. It's a hard problem because there's very
| little sound overlap between English and Mandarin, and this
| is made worse by using Pinyin spelling, which is designed for
| use by native speakers and not English speakers.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhang_(surname)
|
| One solution would be to translate it to Archer. :-)
| amluto wrote:
| I can't make heads or tails of this, since Chinese
| pronunciation and romanized spelling is all over the map.
|
| If the name is expected to be read as Mandarin (which is
| reasonably likely but not at all certain), written in
| Pinyin (which is likely), then, with a mild Taiwanese
| Mandarin accent, it would be fairly close to "jaw" but with
| an ng sound at the end instead of a w. If it's pronounced
| with an accent from closer to Beijing, then the initial
| consonant would be retroflexed, which doesn't occur in
| English. It sounds a bit like "zhrrrr" where the "zh" part
| is somewhat similar to the j in jaw. If it's a stronger
| Taiwanese accent, the initial consonant could be more like
| "dz". But it could be something else entirely.
|
| Then there's the tone, and the tone mark is missing
| entirely. It's highly unlikely that this means it's 5th-
| tone (as it would be if it were real Pinyin), and it's
| probably first tone in this case. You can find guides
| online.
| wanderlust2021 wrote:
| How much of a progress is this? Anyone here that can add
| insights?
| kiloDalton wrote:
| The paper isn't about splitting water to yield hydrogen and
| oxygen gas which would be useful for energy applications. It's
| about a new way to make radical hydrogen (1 protein plus 1
| electron) which is useful for synthesizing some organic
| compounds. It will be helpful for synthetic chemists and will
| make it easier to explore hydrogen radical chemistry. It may
| replace some processes that currently require transition metal
| catalysts, especially Samarium which is a rare earth element.
| blacksqr wrote:
| Anything that creates hydrogen radicals could conceivably be
| used to construct electricity-producing fuel cells.
|
| Fuel cells normally radicalize hydrogen by contacting
| hydrogen with platinum catalysts under extreme conditions,
| requiring expensive and tricky design.
|
| If this new process can do the same in mild conditions with
| inexpensive organic catalysts under exposure to light, it
| could lead to more economical fuel cell designs.
| Filligree wrote:
| > 1 protein plus 1 electron
|
| Assuming that was autocorrupt. :)
|
| But 1+1... isn't that just normal hydrogen? Is the point that
| it's atomic, not H2?
| Someone wrote:
| Indeed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_(chemistry)
|
| _"In chemistry, a radical, also known as a free radical,
| is an atom, molecule, or ion that has at least one unpaired
| valence electron. With some exceptions, these unpaired
| electrons make radicals highly chemically reactive. Many
| radicals spontaneously dimerize. Most organic radicals have
| short lifetimes."_
| kiloDalton wrote:
| I wish I could blame autocorrect. Just had proteins on the
| brain and typed the wrong word. If it wasn't obvious,
| protein --> proton
| Eric_WVGG wrote:
| Looks like the guys at Klei and _Oxygen Not Included_ are gonna
| have to work this into a new point release!
| https://www.klei.com/games/oxygen-not-included
| [deleted]
| dylan604 wrote:
| To do this, what level of distillation needs to be reached? When
| breaking the bonds in a water molecule, what happens to the
| impurities in the water?
| mcpackieh wrote:
| I guess we can now look forward to a new wave of scams promising
| to break the laws of thermodynamics to get free energy from
| water.
| nashashmi wrote:
| Yup transport hydrogen up a pipe, convert to water and extract
| electricity, and then use gravity forces to turn the turbine,
| then convert back to hydrogen, repeat.
| whoomp12342 wrote:
| I, for one, cannot wait to purchase dehydrated water.
| foobarian wrote:
| Has been available for a while. E.g.
| https://www.rei.com/product/109906/aquatabs-water-
| purificati...
| dylan604 wrote:
| It's great for backpacking as it weighs much less and takes
| up less space in your pack. All you have to do is add water,
| shake it up, and your drink is ready in less than 15 seconds.
| Maybe the astronauts can take advantage too.
| conanite wrote:
| you laugh but i've always thought it would be great to
| carry a kilo of pure hydrogen in my backpack - just burn it
| to obtain like 5 litres of water ... I mean why are we
| carrying all that oxygen in our backpacks when he
| atmosphere has a plentiful supply of it...
| solardev wrote:
| Maybe we need mini packblimps that can not only carry
| fuel, but part of the pack, the dog, the kid, etc. It
| could have AI assisted propeller machetes to hack away at
| wayward branches, geofenced to protect endangered flora
| of course.
|
| Then if you add some condensing coils and a transparent
| roof, you could also just leave the backpacking food in
| there and it'll slowly get moist and solar cook. After a
| twelve hour hike you'd get lukewarm edible mud, mmm.
|
| Explosions are a minor risk, but if you can make water
| out of the hydrogen anyway, surely you can put out any
| resultant wildfires.
|
| Cyberpunk Smokey would be proud.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Have you ever actually seen a canister of hydrogen?
| Specifically, have you ever felt the weight of that
| canister? I'd rather just carry the 8lbs of a gallon of
| water. At least it gets lighter as the water is depleted
| sp332 wrote:
| Just put the hydrogen in a balloon and it will carry
| itself.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Just remember, the flame from hydrogen is clear and very
| hard to see until it catches other things on fire. At
| that point, it's well past too late
| toast0 wrote:
| Just need a longer string for the balloon and it'll be
| ok. And hike in places with less trees (although, after a
| few mishaps, the trails you frequent will have less
| trees, too).
| whatshisface wrote:
| Carbon is lighter than oxygen, so their plan would work
| if they brought fully saturated hydrocarbons including
| ones so long-chain that they were solid at room
| temperature.
| dylan604 wrote:
| You just described coal. So, you're suggesting taking
| coal on a backpacking trip along with a very heavy
| canister of hydrogen. To make water? Anything else you
| want to do to help destroy the environment you're
| backpacking through?
|
| You realize this whole thread started with the concept of
| dehydrated water, right?
| whatshisface wrote:
| Saturated hydrocarbons contain hydrogen. That is what the
| carbon is saturated with. Coal is not saturated.
| [deleted]
| Filligree wrote:
| Well, the same amount of hydrogen (as in 1kg of water) in
| the form of methane only weighs ~450g though. And
| methane, conveniently, turns into H2O when burned.
|
| So in principle you could carry a bottle of methane and
| burn that to get water. ;-)
| [deleted]
| dylan604 wrote:
| roughly half the weight, plus the weight of the burner
| equipment. again, that weight still remains even after
| the supply of fuel to make water is depleted. a just of
| water gets lighter. by the end of the hike, this is very
| much a nice quality
| Aachen wrote:
| Where do you find 550g lighters? Surely a pocket lighter
| to save half a kilogram of water is worth it
| dylan604 wrote:
| What do you expect to do, open the valve, flick a Bic,
| and the water is going to start flowing? Come on. This
| was a fun nonsensical thread, and you're now trying to
| turn it into a magic trick rather than goofy science. You
| have to capture the flame's exhaust, pressurize it, and
| whatever other sciencey stuff to get the waste into a
| liquid
| marcosdumay wrote:
| > pressurize it
|
| You "just" have to capture and cool it down.
|
| I mean, it's completely outside of viability, but it's
| not breaking ground science. You could do it perfectly
| well in a lab (if you had any reason to).
| dylan604 wrote:
| There's a lot of things that can be done in a lab, but
| bringing it to the real world is totally different.
| Nevermind fitting this in the original concept of
| backpacking
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| FreshStart wrote:
| The monthly hydrogen article, the carbon industry is alive and
| well.
| [deleted]
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(page generated 2023-09-06 20:00 UTC)