Can you believe that generating hydrogen from urine is the dream of a lifetime for some? A newly-invented catalyst can help electrolyze the urine and extract the hydrogen from it much more efficiently than from water.
Gerardine Botte from the Ohio University discovered the catalyst that could one day not only provide clean fuel for cars to run, but also help cleaning the municipal wastewater of the most abundant waste element on earth: urea.
The urea molecule is composed of four hydrogen atoms (unlike water, which only has two), but they are not so tightly bonded as they are in the H2O molecule, so splitting them apart should be a fairly easy job.
For example, to electrolyze water you need 1.23 volts applied to the cell, while urea only needs 0.37 volts.”During the electrochemical process the urea gets adsorbed on to the nickel electrode surface, which passes the electrons needed to break up the molecule,” said Botte.
To make the technology useful for sewage cleaning purposes, it has to be scaled up relatively easily, using regular electrolyzers.
[via physorg]
Gerardine Botte, você é um impostor. Esta invenção não é sua. Uns jovens africanos, foram os criadores deste invento. Você lhes deve direitos autorais.
What a load of ‘ well crap’. This was discovered by three girls in Africa a year ago. They showed it at a science fair and won prizes for their invention, Nickle electrodes and all. Now this Gerardine Botte has discovered the same thing. If you steal an idea you should give some credit to the real discoverers. I imagine she will make a fortune with this “DISCOVERY” while the girls in Africa will continue to live in poverty.
So if I get “pissed off” all I need to really do is litterly “piss” in my hydrogen electolizer to produce more hydrogen.