Tata, MIT Collaborate to Create Energy From Water

[Ares]

Tata, MIT Collaborate to Create Energy From Water, Bring Power to 3 Billion People

<img src="http://images.fastcompany.com/upload/Artificial-Photosynthesis-The-Latest-Way-To-Power-Your-Home.jpg"/>

The Tata Group continues its ever-expanding quest to bring resources to low-income citizens of the world, this time with an announcement that it has joined up with MIT scientist Daniel Nocera, founder of SunCatalytix, to create power from water. Specific terms of the deal have not been disclosed.

Just 45 days ago, Nocera and his team stuck an artificial cobalt- and phosphate-coated silicon leaf into a jar of water and managed to create power--at an efficiency that surpasses today's solar panels, no less. The technique mimics photosynthesis by splitting hydrogen from water to generate power from the sun.

Tata and Nocera imagine that the research could lead to a refrigerator-sized "mini power plant" in a development that could, according to Live Mint, bring power to the three billion people currently living without.

Nocera's research is still in the preliminary stages; by next year, he expects to be able to generate enough energy from a bottle and a half of water (wastewater can be used) to power a small house. If Nocera's research pans out as hoped, a swimming pool-sized container refreshed each day with new water could meet the entire planet's electricity demands. So no matter how preliminary the research, Tata stands to reap big rewards if it pans out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WD9yr-Bf-Kw

http://www.fastcompany.com/1742141/tata-teams-up-with-mit-researchers-to-create-power-from-water-bring-power-to-billions-of-peo

[vacuum]

Couldn't really watch the video, but it seems like they're getting power from the sun, not water?

[Ares]

Couldn't really watch the video, but it seems like they're getting power from the sun, not water?


From my understanding they are using solar energy to split water to get Hydrogen / Oxygen. Basically a solar powered fuel cell.

Someone correct me if I am wrong but that's what it sounds like.

[Ash_Williams]

Yes. It's a better use of solar. Instead of creating electricity they are using it directly to split water. The idea isn't new (I think it's been working for at least 10 years), what has changed here are the materials used to make it happen, and I guess the new materials are make the process cheaper or more efficient (or everyone's forgotten that this can already be done so they're trying to re-ignite the buzz around the idea.)

I'm not sure the remark about the swimming pool powering the planet made any sense though, unless they meant a swimming pool per household.

[Ares]

I'm not sure the remark about the swimming pool powering the planet made any sense though, unless they meant a swimming pool per household.

I took that part to mean that if they had pool (I'm assuming an Olympic sized swimming pool) full of water and they were able to split all of the hydrogen / oxygen and convert it to energy that there would be enough to power the entire planet.

There is a tremendous amount of stored energy in water, so seems feasible.

[Ash_Williams]

took that part to mean that if they had pool (I'm assuming an Olympic sized swimming pool) full of water and they were able to split all of the hydrogen / oxygen and convert it to energy that there would be enough to power the entire planet.

There is a tremendous amount of stored energy in water, so seems feasible.

Well one way to find out.

Google tells me the you'll get 286 kJ/mol of energy from burning hydrogen, and hydrogen has mass 1 so that makes it easy... 286 kJ per gram.

"18.8 trillion kilowatthours in 2007" is a number I find for world electricity generation. So 0.05 trillion kwh per day. 1 kwh = 3.6 M joules.

(3.6 x 10^6 * 0.05 x 10^12) / 286 x 10^3 = grams of hydrogen needed to power the world for a day.

I get 6.3x10^11 grams. So about 1,400,000,000 lbs of hydrogen.

Water is H2O with H2 = 2 and O = 16, so 1lb of hydrogen means 9 lbs of water.
Now it's 12,600,000,000 lbs of water.

8.34 lb of water is 1 gallon so 1,500,000,000 gallons is needed

An olympic swimming pool is apparently something like 550,000 gallons, so we're still looking at 2750 of them.

However, it's a lot closer than I would have thought without doing the math. I expected them to be off by a factor of millions, not just thousands. I was also assuming they meant satisfy all the power needs of the planet (which is huge as compared to just the electricity needs), but reading it again they do specifically say "electricity needs" so I used that in my calc.

[Ponce]

Dam Ash, you spoiled my fun.......I just wanted shinny water.