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Asked by rose13 to Cathal, Daphne, Darren, Jon, Katherine on 11 Mar 2012.
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Katherine Haxton answered on 9 Mar 2012:
We can burn the hydrogen and turn it back into water, producing energy to power cars and other devices. Then we turn the water back to hydrogen and oxygen (which requires energy) and so on and so on. Hydrogen’s really useful in fuel cells and has been used to power cars so as long as we can produce it, we can keep using it. Plenty of water around…
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Jon Benton answered on 11 Mar 2012:
Hopefully I can give some enlightenment. The sun provides enough energy to the surface of the whole earth in one hour for all of human consumption for a year so if we can use this energy it will be a clean energy source which is what is used in solar panels.
There are materials out there that can absorb the energy from the sunlight and when placed in water and connected in an electrical circuit so you have a anode and cathode (positive and negative regions) there is enough energy though the capture of the sunlight to create an electron (negative) and hole (positive) that move either through the circuit or to the surface of the material and react with the water. One of the materials will react to produce hydrogen from the water and the other will produce oxygen.
The idea is to then take the hydrogen that is produced during this reaction and use it to power vehicles as it can be easily burnt like regular fuel, however compared to regular fuel when you burn hydrogen and it reacts with oxygen in the air you end up with water the product you started with that’s why splitting water into hydrogen is a renewable fuel!
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