Naked Science Forum
Non Life Sciences => Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology => Topic started by: Glenn Romaniuk on 08/03/2010 18:13:24
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I've been hearing allot of hype lately regarding Bloom's fuel cell technology and the term P2P (powder to Power). Where they use sand to produce fuel cells. These devices require heat, which is produced by combusting fuel (methane, hyrogen, diesel, gasoline, etc.) and thru chemical reactive process convert it to power. Please explain how this overcomes the laws of perpetual energy and how the output power can outweigh the input of burning non-renewable resources?
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Let's take the example of burning oil fossils.
Clearly more energy is generated by burning kerosene than the energy required to obtain the kerosene from crude oil.
That does not means that first law of thermodynamics (energy conservation law) is violated.
In fact if we account for the energy stored in chemical bonds which is released upon burning we see that energy is in fact conserved.
How energy got stored in chemical bonds of the oil molecules? Well, during anaerobic degradation of dead plankton (millions of years ago) some energy was consumed in that process and stored in chemical bonds of the formed oily molecules, and we use today that energy as main source of energy and to power up our technology.
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Swedish scientists have developed a "Ultrafast All-Polymer paper-Based Battery."
It's not perfect, after 100 loads it loses around six percent of its capacity but it's all green, entirely based on cellulose and polypyrrole, water and salt. And you can load it in ten seconds.
All green Battery. (http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/nl901852h?cookieSet=1&journalCode=nalefd)
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but it's all green, entirely based on cellulose and polypyrrole, water and salt.
Well almost, but not quite. It's loaded with with nanoparticles.
Not to be a party pooper or anything, but it's far from clear what long term effects nanoparticles will have on the environment.