Chemists develop new way to split water
uni-muenster.de
uni-muenster.de
"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 Münster 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?
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.
One solution would be to translate it to Archer. :-)
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.
Assuming that was autocorrupt. :)
But 1+1... isn't that just normal hydrogen? Is the point that it's atomic, not H2?
“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.”
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.
However, the Wikipedia page titled "Phosphine Oxide" states that reduction of the oxide back to its original state is straightforwardly done with cheap reagents.
You realize this whole thread started with the concept of dehydrated water, right?
So in principle you could carry a bottle of methane and burn that to get water. ;-)
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).
You can turn methane into water in theory. And you can technically do it in a lab (even though the easiest way by far to do it uses a lot of water). You can't do it on your backpack.
Not like I know how this stuff works. Someone says methane turns into water when burned, I imagine based on farts that it floats like in a nice balloon or Hindenburg, I figure this do be how this was intended ¯\_(:))_/¯
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.
Seriously though, I've often wondered if a weather balloon style lifter tethered to a backpack could help it be lighter. Probably with a less flammable gas, and only in sparsely forested areas.
as far as helium balloon, it would have to be a balloon of such enormous size to be of any benefit. To launch a couple pounds of payload to 90k feet required a balloon 8' in diameter on the ground.