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Water to Fuel to Water
Moderators: kgudger, bfinio, MadelineB, Moderators
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Taylor19
- Posts: 1
- Joined: Thu Sep 05, 2013 5:23 am
- Occupation: student
- Project Question: Turning water into hydrogen energy
- Project Due Date: September 2013
- Project Status: I am finished with my experiment and analyzing the data
Water to Fuel to Water
Hello, I completed the experiment Water to Fuel to Water from Science Buddies and am getting information ready to present at my science fair. I have some questions regarding the experiment. Is what we created with the materials considered to be a simple fuel cell? It did not say so anywhere in on the site or with the info that came along with the experiment, but it seems to be one. I don't want to present it as a fuel cell at my fair if it isn't actually one. Someone told me that a fuel cell is just for storing hydrogen and oxygen then burning them together so I don't know if this could be one -- we are not storing the hydrogen in this experiment, right? On the experiment page on this site it does say : "In this science project, you will explore a cutting-edge method for storing renewable energy by breaking up water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen. The hydrogen and oxygen are fuels that can be burned in devices such as fuel cells to produce clean electricity when it is dark!" How is this storing renewable energy if we're simply creating it and producing energy immediately or how can this show it? It also says that the objective of the experiment is -- Examine water's usefulness as a renewable energy source by observing how efficient a cobalt-based catalyst can be at helping to form molecular oxygen." So what exactly am I showing in this experiment? How hydrogen can be stored? Or just how water can be split using a catalyst? By creating a fuel cell? I understand all concepts of splitting water, hydrogen fuel, how a catalyst can enhance the efficiency of the splitting, just not sure how this all ties into hydrogen storage and fuel.
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kgudger
- Moderator
- Posts: 421
- Joined: Wed Sep 17, 2008 9:20 pm
- Occupation: electronic engineer
- Project Question: n/a
- Project Due Date: n/a
- Project Status: Not applicable
Re: Water to Fuel to Water
Hello!
As I see it, this experiment is about making cobalt coated electrodes which are a very efficient way to do electrolysis. It is not a fuel cell. If you captured the split hydrogen and oxygen (in a balloon? ) and then burned this gas, you would be recombining the gases, but this would be pure combustion, not a fuel cell. (It would be good to research fuel cells. ) (I would also suggest researching electrolysis and catalysts. )
This experiment seems to be about how long it takes to completely coat the electrodes, and what efficiency you end up with.
Keith
As I see it, this experiment is about making cobalt coated electrodes which are a very efficient way to do electrolysis. It is not a fuel cell. If you captured the split hydrogen and oxygen (in a balloon? ) and then burned this gas, you would be recombining the gases, but this would be pure combustion, not a fuel cell. (It would be good to research fuel cells. ) (I would also suggest researching electrolysis and catalysts. )
This experiment seems to be about how long it takes to completely coat the electrodes, and what efficiency you end up with.
Keith