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| Down Under | |
| Aussie scientist has new way to get hydrogen from sunlight | |
| 2004-08-27 | |
| ...Australian scientists predict that a revolutionary new way to harness the power of the sun to extract clean and almost unlimited energy supplies from water will be a reality within seven years. [later in the article this 7 year prediction is hedged] Using special titanium oxide ceramics that harvest sunlight and split water to produce hydrogen fuel, the researchers say it will then be a simple engineering exercise to make an energy-harvesting device with no moving parts and emitting no greenhouse gases or pollutants... I don't know much about ceramic based chemistry but I do know that the US has a very capable high tech ceramic capability. If the Aussies can do it, I think there's a good chance the US could do it also, maybe better.
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| Posted by:mhw |
| #11 Titanium is also used for pigment in white automotive paint. |
| Posted by: Super Hose 2004-08-28 3:08:15 AM |
| #10 I didn't know water was still considered an unlimited resource...... |
| Posted by: Anonymous6192 2004-08-27 8:59:20 PM |
| #9 a simple engineering exercise sorta like fusion |
| Posted by: Shipman 2004-08-27 6:12:26 PM |
| #8 Yeah, and laptop cases, and so on. I mentioned golf club manufacturing because the commodity analysis I used to fact-check myself before commenting was complaining that the golfer's craze for titanium materials was pricing alloys out of the car market. Strange world. mhw: looks like Konarka is also using titanium dioxide, in this case as a doping agent in plastic film-cells. Amusingly enough, they're promising about 2/3rds the efficiency of old-fashioned silicon photovoltaics, with the pay-off being that the doped plastic cells will be more "versatile" and cheaper. That probably means a lower failure-rate, and a more flexable, durable material. The products being offered are portable chargers for consumer electronics - designed to be carried around folded and stuffed away, and then unfolded in the right conditions. |
| Posted by: Mitch H. 2004-08-27 3:01:29 PM |
| #7 ...high-ticket industries like aeronautics and golf club manufacturing. (I wish I was joking about that last one.) FYI, ti bike frames run from $1,500 - 3,000. |
| Posted by: Raj 2004-08-27 1:13:36 PM |
| #6 people die in that stuff! |
| Posted by: Frank G 2004-08-27 11:27:54 AM |
| #5 They're using the known toxic chemical dihydrogen monoxide? |
| Posted by: gromky 2004-08-27 11:24:44 AM |
| #4 Mitch, I didn't post this but back in early Aug there was a press release about a company that was working on a 'cheap' solar collector. The link is: http://www.konarkatech.com/ they got some kind of award |
| Posted by: mhw 2004-08-27 9:40:43 AM |
| #3 I didn't know 'harnessing' power was a problem... I thought the real problem was distribution. |
| Posted by: Rawsnacks 2004-08-27 9:30:27 AM |
| #2 Mitch, you should right press releases because the first half of your comment is clearer and more concise than the actual press release. |
| Posted by: RJ Schwarz 2004-08-27 9:14:34 AM |
| #1 Sounds essentially like a solar battery - storing solar energy in the form of hydrogen fuel. Presumably, the titanium oxide ceramics are more efficient solar collectors than the existing, terribly expensive, inefficient materials in use, in addition to the stated reason in the article that the ceramic in question is corrosion-resistant. Problem: titanium isn't particularly cheap on an industrial scale, and is in high demand in high-ticket industries like aeronautics and golf club manufacturing. (I wish I was joking about that last one.) Additional problem: hydrogen is volatile, and hard to store and transport. |
| Posted by: Mitch H. 2004-08-27 8:48:15 AM |