Thread: separation of hdrogen from water

i dont understand people who say that hydrogen cannot be separated from water effectively, because it breaks the fundamental laws of energy conservation. this means fish breaks the laws of energy conservation every day.... from what i read, they separate oxygen from hydrogen and breathe the oxygen.

Point 1: It requires energy to separate hydrogen from water. If we then burn that hydrogen to generate energy we get less useful energy out of the reaction than it took us to break the hydrogen out in the first place. The value of hydrogen as a fuel lies in the idea of using renewable energy resources (solar, wind, etc) to carry out that separation.
Point 2: Fish do not extract oxygen from water molecules. They extract dissolved oxygen from water. Boil all the oxygen out of the water, cool it and a fish will drown in it, as surely as you or I.

lots of energy around everywhere, if you look for it.
hell, staying above -273 degrees celcius requires a lot of energy in its own right. i think that seems like plenty of energy to tap.
molecules are constantly bouncing around, just make them transfer that bouncing to something useful, should do the trick.
i reckon shake them the right way, and each bounce is going to snowball.
since those bonds are so strong anyways, maybe you could make them shear their bonds with the other bonds. put them within pulling distance, and have them pull eachother apart. a bit like stirring some internal conflict within a group of bandits, shoot the survivors, and grab their bounty.

Originally Posted by dejawolf

lots of energy around everywhere, if you look for it.

Even if you don't look for it, there is a lot around. 8) That is the one point we can agree on.

Originally Posted by dejawolf

staying above -273 degrees celcius requires a lot of energy in its own right.

Not exactly true. Staying above absolute zero is a measure of how much energy is present.

Originally Posted by dejawolf

molecules are constantly bouncing around, just make them transfer that bouncing to something useful, should do the trick.

So, you plan to extract heat from some medium and use this heat in a useful way. Am I correct?

Originally Posted by dejawolf

i reckon shake them the right way, and each bounce is going to snowball.

And how exactly are you going to shake them? And where are you getting the energy to shake them in the first place? Oh, I know. You are heating them up. And where was the energy for that coming from?

Originally Posted by dejawolf

since those bonds are so strong anyways, maybe you could make them shear their bonds with the other bonds. put them within pulling distance, and have them pull eachother apart. a bit like stirring some internal conflict within a group of bandits, shoot the survivors, and grab their bounty.

Well it's highly colourful, but I can't see any match between this and the reality of molecular dynamics and bond chemistry etc.
You sound like you are trying to invent perpetual motion. It doesn't work.

There are heat extraction pumps which you can buy to heat your house, it works in the opposite way to a fridge, pipes are layed in your garden and and extracter is placed in your house and is linked to your heating. It is an efficient way of heating the house.

But bond shearing an all this, Im with Ophiolite!

Robbie, I agree with you completely on heat pumps. I was trying to lead dejawolf to recognising that that is what he was partly proposing. However, based on his other observations, I do not think he intended this in the way that you or I would mean.
I await his clarification, but he seems to have a very loose understanding of physics and chemistry, or at best a very wooly way of expressing this understanding.

hehe, well i was being deliberately open in my ways of expression, although my knowledge of physics is indeed pretty limited. but theres no better way to learn, than to be incorrect, and have people tell you whats right, and whats wrong.
i was for some reason thinking about gluons, when thinking about molecular bondings, although those are what holds the atomic core together.

can you tell how molecular bonding works? i know it something about
elements on one side of the periodic table easily bonding with elements on the opposite side, and that water is bonded in a way that makes it
like a battery, with a + and - side, and thats how it gets shaken apart in a microwave.
and i know that its a chain reaction in a nuclear blast where neutrons scoot around and smash nucleus'es apart, creating more and more neutrons.
was pondering if a similar chain reaction could happend to the molecular bonds of water, and if not, why.

but theres no better way to learn, than to be incorrect, and have people tell you whats right, and whats wrong.

I disagree!

Originally Posted by Robbie

but theres no better way to learn, than to be incorrect, and have people tell you whats right, and whats wrong.

I disagree!

out of curiousity robbie how do you learn ?

i find a good combination of both dose the trick.

Alright, I find abook on whatever it is im interessted and I get reading, if I fail to understand something or find something of interest I come here! I agree dicussion is a good idea but I dont consider learning to be a trial and error process!

Chemistry is just as much of an art as it is a science so trial and error is essential to being a good chemist. Its not just about getting an end result you wanted but yield and purity all play a factor, no matter how much text you read that educates you on a process 90% of your learning and improvement comes hands-on.

There are many ways of extracting hydrogen from water but as someone said before the ones that are energy efficient are not economically efficient. I think the most popular method being looked at right now uses sodium borohydride. The biggest problem with hydrogen efficiency is regeneration and by-products. You can react water with several different metal alkalis to make hydrogen but you are left with waste metal oxide and in some cases hydroxide if there is too much water present. The "burning" process of hydrogen fuel may be clean but getting to that point in a practical and economic way isnt.