Scientists hail new 'industrially viable technology' that can squeeze hydrogen from seawater

[Caribbeans]

Systematic illustration of the formation process of how the new device extracts hydrogen from seawater. Credit: Small (2025). DOI: 10.1002/smll.202501376

Scientists hail new 'industrially viable technology' that can squeeze hydrogen from seawater

Ifath Arwah, University of Sharjah | May 12, 2025

Researchers from the University of Sharjah claim to have developed a novel technology capable of producing clean hydrogen fuel directly from seawater, and at an industrial scale.

In a study published in the journal Small, the researchers report that they extracted hydrogen without the need to remove the mineral salts dissolved in seawater or add any chemicals.

According to the authors, the technology enables hydrogen extraction from seawater without relying on desalination plants, which require massive investments totaling hundreds of millions of dollars.

"We developed a novel, multi-layered electrode that can extract hydrogen directly from seawater efficiently and sustainably. Traditional methods face a host of problems, mainly corrosion and performance degradation caused by chloride ions in seawater," said Dr. Tanveer ul Haq, assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry, College of Sciences, University of Sharjah, and the study's lead author.

The authors designed a specially engineered electrode which, in the words of Dr. ul Haq, "overcomes these issues by creating a protective and reactive microenvironment that boosts performance while resisting damage."...more
https://techxplore.com/news/2025-05-scientists-hail-industrially-viable-technology.html

[Bernardo de La Paz]

1. I wonder what the energy budget is. . . . nt

[erronis]

3. If you have to ask, you aren't part of the group.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

4. Okay, goodbye. . . . . nt

[erronis]

5. Hope you took that as a bit of humor.

Most of my ex-wives didn't appreciate it either...

[Bernardo de La Paz]

7. I know you have a dry sense, and sometimes a fun way to deal with someone pulling your leg is to hand it to them

[erronis]

2. I'll get my retirement fund investment advisor on this pronto!

My investments in perpetual motion seems stalled or going in reverse. Cold fusion is still promising for another $1T infusion - so I'm told.

[NNadir]

6. It's electrolysis, and subject to the laws of thermodynamics, at energy losses. It doesn't make hydrogen clean...

...it's still filthy.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

8. Especially if the electricity is produced by nuclear energy? Does nuclear fire produce clean electricity?

Asked rhetorically.

[NNadir]

9. I don't know how many times I need to say this. Except for France, there are no places on this planet where there...

...electricity isn't dependent on fossil fuels or the destruction of major river systems. Thus every nuclear reactor on this planet operates to prevent the combustion of fossil fuels. This is actually true even of France, since they regularly export electricity to the coal burning assholes in Germany.

Making hydrogen by a thermodynamically inefficient purpose using nuclear electricity is therefore obscene. Hydrogen is made by steam reformation of fossil fuels far more efficiently than it is made from electricity, since electricity, by its nature, is thermodynamically degraded.

It is true that it is possible to make thermochemical hydrogen, but at this point, in 2025, there are no industrial plants capable of this transformation using nuclear heat. And - this is important - that heat will be thermodynamically degraded to make hydrogen. Only in China is thermochemical hydrogen reportedly being piloted, but it is not going to be an industrial practice in any time that will matter there or anywhere else.

How many times do I need to explain the obvious difference between "could" and "is?"

The fossil fuel sales person who comes here to greenwash fossil fuels as "hydrogen" puts bullshit up like this as if it's magic. It's not, nor is it new. Heather Willauer was publishing around this idea (including extracting carbon dioxide as well as hydrogen from seawater) over a decade ago.

Hydrogen is an important industrial reagent for the manufacture of ammonia, essential to the world food supply, but I note that there are no limits to assholes who want to make it, despite all of its horrible (and dangerous) physical properties, into a consumer product.

And let's be clear about something, the 50 years of consumer hydrogen bullshit that rears its ugly head regularly, the scientifically contemptible idea that storing energy is clean, something that should be obvious to high school students exposed to the laws of thermodynamics (as they should be) was nonsense in 1970 and it's nonsense now.

Here's a swell history of the last half a century of hydrogen bullshit: A Historical Analysis of Hydrogen Economy Research, Development, and Expectations, 1972 to 2020

A fun excerpt:

In 2004, HyNet Project [15] reported there would be half a million to one million FCV in Europe by 2015, while the Fuel Cell Commercialization Conference of Japan (FCCJ) [16] projected five million FCV in Japan by 2020 in their 2002 roadmap. However, IEA only reported over forty thousand FCV on the road globally in 2021 [17]. The latest interest wave has arisen as governments and energy companies have put hydrogen forward as a major candidate to decarbonize the economy, with extra momentum for post-COVID-19 recovery efforts...

Exactly 21 years ago, the concentration of the dangerous fossil fuel waste carbon dioxide in the planetary atmosphere, in week 19 of 2004, was 380.69 ppm. This morning it was reported (a daily reading from yesterday) it was as follows:

May 14: 430.69 ppm
May 13: Unavailable
May 12: Unavailable
May 11: Unavailable
May 10: 431.25 ppm
Last Updated: May 15, 2025

Recent Daily Average Mauna Loa CO2 In the last 21 years, all of it filled with hydrogen bullshit not any different that the barely disguised Exxon ads that run here, that's 50 ppm. So much for fuel cell miracles. (If one was aware of the chemistry of fuel cells, it's even more obscene, but that's another point.)

Let me make something clear: My support of nuclear energy has not a fucking thing to do with a belief that hydrogen is or can be "green" or that it has anything to do with sustainability. It doesn't. Hydrogen is less safe and less useful than the natural gas from which it's made, overwhelmingly, It's a useful industrial reagent, but in 2025, it should only be manufactured for essential industries, specifically, ammonia synthesis.