2006-07-07 16:28:07 · 13 answers · asked by Anonymous in Science & Mathematics ➔ Physics
Seperating the hydrogen and oxygen is called "Hydrolysis" and it requries a great deal of energy. Electric fuel cells work roughly by reversing this processes, joining the two constituent elements and gaining energy.
2006-07-07 16:33:16 · answer #1 · answered by Argon 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Whatever energy you expect to get out of this fuel cell has to be put in first (through hydrolysis), so it depends on how cheap your initial energy source is and the efficiency of hydrolysis. I don't know what the efficiency is, but it ain't 100%. Hydrogen is not a replacement for fossil fuels. Hydrogen is a replacement for batteries.
2006-07-08 00:28:36 · answer #2 · answered by Enrique C 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
They can be separated, but not cheaply: energy is required. Oxygen is of course available in the air. The cheapest source of industrial hydrogen is natural gas [not coal, which contains only negligible quantities of it]. Although hydrogen, when used in fuel cells, is a clean and fairly efficient source of power, the cost of making it and the difficulty of storing, transporting, and distributing it will limit its use.
2006-07-07 23:52:13 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Yes it can be separated by electrolysis but the energy consumed for the electricity has to be less than the energy produced. There is a company in Florida that claims to have achieved this by creating a gas called Aquygen.
2006-07-07 23:36:37 · answer #4 · answered by DR 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Despite what others think of Bush's oil connections, seperating water for hydrogen has no chance for being efficient. It takes electricity to seperate them and more than you get due to inefficient conversion of the reaction. In other words, you lose too much energy to make this efficient.
If you want hydrogen, the better source is coal gasification (removing the hydrogen from coal and leaving the carbon behind). There's more hydrogen in coal and it doesn't take all that much to extract it.
2006-07-07 23:35:25 · answer #5 · answered by oldmoose2 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
yes. currently it is done by electrolysis, and is very expensive, as it takes more power to make than its capable of supply energy back.
a cheaper method which could work is the physical separation of the molecules by molecular "cleaving" of the atoms from each other. draeger had a simple glass fritted apparatus that could remove atoms of certain wastes as a gas from water for a series of screen tests to determine pollution content. if they could refine the process so that water could liberate the atoms of hydrogen and oxygen, it would go a long way to solving the need for large amounts of energy to produce the result.
2006-07-08 02:55:56 · answer #6 · answered by centurion613 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Water can be split into its two elements through a proses known as electrolysis. However this proses is not cheap. Fuel cells are based on this technology and there are working prototypes of hydrogen burning cars. It is a clean burning fuel but as I said before it is not cheap.
2006-07-07 23:36:11 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
You can buy a device that does just this through hydrolysis. I believe it was around $20,000 to $40,000. The device would be in your house and basicly produce hydrogen for your car, furnace,ect.
2006-07-07 23:38:16 · answer #8 · answered by aorton27 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
yes
ever heard of hyro car
it runs on water
seperates hydrogen and use it for energy and let go of oxygen to air
2006-07-07 23:35:08 · answer #9 · answered by Joe_Black 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋
i believe thats kind of similar to how hydrogen fuel cells work
2006-07-07 23:31:18 · answer #10 · answered by apolloandi 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋