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As part of photosynthesis plants somehow very efficiently split water into hydrogen and oxygen, using relatively small amounts of energy from sunlight. Humanity can accomplish the same split by using tremendous amounts of electricity (that’s how oxygen is generated inside a nuclear submarine). If plants had to rely on human technology they’d use up far more energy trying to do photosynthesis than they’d possibly get out of the process. Plants have been hyper efficient in a way scientists have only been able to envy.
When I learned about this in high school I wondered if as our ability to analyze plants improves, humanity will discover how to split water as efficiently as plants do. I pondered how this could transform how humanity generates energy. A small amount of electricity (from a solar cell or other source), along with some water, and the right process, could split hydrogen from oxygen. They could then be recombined to generate power, either in a fuel cell, or by exposing the hydrogen to oxygen (ie, burning it, forming water again). All that is needed is for the day to come when human technology can split water as efficiently as the leaf of a plant.
That day may be much closer. MIT professor Daniel G. Nocera and his postdoc Matthew Kanan made an important discovery in January of 2008, and are publishing an article describing it in the August 1, 2008 edition of Science (article stub).
Prior efforts to split water efficiently tried to run electricity into water with some type of stable catalyst (a catalyst is other chemicals, that help the process along). Photosynthesis is a violent chemical process however, and has tended to tear down catalysts. Scientists have searched for a stable catalyst that can help make splitting water happen with small amounts of electricity.
Nocera and Kanan used an unstable catalyst instead. They dissolved an inexpensive cobalt and phosphate catalyst mixture in water, ran an electric current through an electrode, and with the additional presence of some platinum catalyst, oxygen bubbles out of the water and hydrogen forms around the electrode. Although the cobalt and phosphate catalyst gets corroded whenever electricity is not applied, Nocera and Kanan found that it reassembles when electricty is applied.
If you are interested in more articles on this discovery, check out google news: http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=us&q=%22daniel+nocera%22&ie=UTF-8&scoring=n
this so didn't tell me wat i wanted to know i need a lot of help on my project gosh
what is it you're trying to do in your project?
how may times can you split H2O before you create a hydrogen ion that will no longer form with oxygen?
assuming there's an available oxygen atom and nothing else for two hydrogen atoms to bond to, i'd say the number of times you can split the H20 is equal to the lifespan of the universe divided by the time it takes to split and recombine once
does the energy of burning hydrogen exceed the initial energy needed to split H2O?
burning hydrogen in the sense you're using it (eg, not referring to reactions inside a star) is another name for oxydization. so you burn hydrogen by adding adding oxygen to it, forming water. this releases some energy. splitting water also takes energy, which for plants comes from light (photons). the point of this blog post is that you can use less energy than before by using a catalyst. the amount of energy obtained from burning hydrogen or used up in splitting water depends on the specifics of how each is done. notice that according to the law of conservation of energy, the energy doesn't disappear… it always goes somewhere, just perhaps in a different form.
lmsao.
wooow.
he said gosh(:
i still dont get it
please someone save me how the heck do you split hydrogen and oxegyn!!!!!!!!!
to make water turn into hydrogen and oxygen you run electricity through the water. it usually takes lots of electricity, but that's what nuclear submarines do to get the oxygen that lets people stay alive on them even over a long period of submerged time. to make the process more efficient dissolve the right amount of cobalt and phosphate in water, put some platinum in the water, and then run electricity through the water… oxygen bubbles out of the water and hydrogen forms around the electrode. of course to get the set up exactly right you'll have to read the scientific paper
So this tells how plants can produce hydrogen and oxygen, but can someone tell me exactly how the process is in splitting water with a simple electric charge and sodium chloride and two conductors to create both hydrogen and oxygen. I’m doing a science project on how water is split into hydrogen and oxygen with a simple 9-volt battery, electric wire connected to both plus and minus sides of the battery, and two pencils sharpened on both ends with one end wrapped with the wire. I’m testing to see if the pencils and 9-volt battery can do the same as the regular platinum process. I add salt to the water and the two pencils are supposed to split the water from both ends into hydrogen and oxygen. So please inform me or email me at ____@yahoo.com and tell me the process of the water spliting. Thank you!
see the project which you are doing is quite similar to what the earlier reply was. here the electrodes are the pencils. although pencils are made up of wood which is a poor conductor of electricity but don’t forget that pencil contains led or graphite which are very good conductors of electricity. here when you pass the electric current the led or the graphite acts as a conductor and the circuit becomes complete. you have added salt to the water which makes it even a better conductor of electricity. so when you pass the electric cuurent water splits into hydrogen and oxygen
and the bubbles of these gas forms around the electrode.