Posted 05 Mar 2010 — by KyrosKoh Category Do You Know
shrff14, via Flickr.com
MIT chemist Dan Nocera showed how well he put that his new photosynthetic process could save money. Using a special catalyst, the process splits water into two gases, oxygen and hydrogen, as the fuel, efficiently enough to power a home using only sunlight and a bottle of water.
Just like the actual photosynthesis, Nocera’s reaction uses solar panel to get sunlight during the day to convert carbon dioxide and water into oxygen and energy. Plants create energy in the form of sugars, this process creates energy in the form of free hydrogen. That hydrogen can either be recombined with the oxygen in a fuel cell to generate electricity, or converted into a liquid fuel.
In about four hours, water treated with Nocera’s catalyst can produce 30 kilowatt-hours of energy. Moreover, the process is cheap. So cheap, in fact, that Nocera has no problem envisioning a day when each house generates its own fuel and electricity from photosynthesis.
Check out this video and hear Nocera describe this process himself:
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