Technology Review: Solar-Power Breakthrough
Technology Review: Solar-Power Breakthrough
This artificial photosynthesis amounts to half of a critical engineering problem. An efficient means of storing hydrogen remains the other half of the equation. Plants convert carbon dioxide to oxygen, sugars and carbohydrates. These sugars and carbohydrates store hydrogen as part of the chemical structure in a highly efficient way, not much weight or bulk, lots of energy. Animals work the other side of the oxygen carbon dioxide cycle. We eat the plants for the "carbos" but like solar panels we do not collect fuel at night.
Animals have as uniquely efficient a storage system for hydrogen as do the plants. We store energy, protons, in our mitochondria bound by cytochrome oxidase. We store hydrogen as protons! and protons are not a gas; they are lighter, higher energy, and occupy less space and bulk. A proton is hydrogen without its electron.
The chemists need yet to devise a chemical storage or a particle storage as efficient as our mitochondria. We need an inexpensive, simple, light weight molecule that binds vast numbers of hydrogen ions in a manner that provides for fast abundant release of the bound protons. Alternatively, protons may store peacefully within nano-carbon channels as a sufficient vesicle containing these charged particles. There may be other ways to store protons. The particle physicists may have a trick or two up their sleeve, and the point is the high energy concentration inherent in these "bachelor" particles.
A sociologist might say, "Fire is in our DNA, protons are in our mitochondria." Are we ready for a "Proton Drive?"
This artificial photosynthesis amounts to half of a critical engineering problem. An efficient means of storing hydrogen remains the other half of the equation. Plants convert carbon dioxide to oxygen, sugars and carbohydrates. These sugars and carbohydrates store hydrogen as part of the chemical structure in a highly efficient way, not much weight or bulk, lots of energy. Animals work the other side of the oxygen carbon dioxide cycle. We eat the plants for the "carbos" but like solar panels we do not collect fuel at night.
Animals have as uniquely efficient a storage system for hydrogen as do the plants. We store energy, protons, in our mitochondria bound by cytochrome oxidase. We store hydrogen as protons! and protons are not a gas; they are lighter, higher energy, and occupy less space and bulk. A proton is hydrogen without its electron.
The chemists need yet to devise a chemical storage or a particle storage as efficient as our mitochondria. We need an inexpensive, simple, light weight molecule that binds vast numbers of hydrogen ions in a manner that provides for fast abundant release of the bound protons. Alternatively, protons may store peacefully within nano-carbon channels as a sufficient vesicle containing these charged particles. There may be other ways to store protons. The particle physicists may have a trick or two up their sleeve, and the point is the high energy concentration inherent in these "bachelor" particles.
A sociologist might say, "Fire is in our DNA, protons are in our mitochondria." Are we ready for a "Proton Drive?"
posted by Clancy Hughes | 11/29/2008 10:12:00 AM
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