MIT - new virus to split water into hydrogen and oxygen

MIT - new virus to split water into hydrogen and oxygen

www.h2journal.com

- Researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have developed a new way to biologically split water into hydrogen and oxygen using sunlight - with a kind of virus.





The virus was engineered specially for the project. It is shaped as a wire, and can bind with molecules of catalyst (iridium oxide was used) and a biological pigment (zinc porphyrins was used).


The process copies the way plants split up water, using natural pigments to absorb sunlight, and catalysts to promote the water splitting.

(visit the link for the full news article)

I think if they can pull this off and its economicaly viable our energy problems may be solved!

www.h2journal.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

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[edit on 24/4/2010 by Mirthful Me]

reply to post by SWCCFAN


Given that water is 60% of human body weight what does this mean? I am just imagining someone walking in to the sunlight and having their skin start boiling off - you know like a ******* vampire?

reply to post by ararisq


Yeah that is a very good point. It could kill off every living species on earth if it was released.

My first thought was, the virus gets released into our oceans and dries up all our water and turns it into the gases hydrogen and oxygen.


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reply to post by doctor j and inmate c5779


Nah, the real fear is if they weaponised it, and made it fast dispersing. Imagine. Flash, and then everyone looses all thier H20 , desicating before eachothers eyes, which incidentaly would dry out and become useless probably as one of the first things to go . Then of course the organs would shut down one by one, until there wasnt enough liquid to sustain anything approaching life. Then the party responsible , just march in, take over the remaining infrastructure, and move thier own folks in. What a devastating air burst weapon... thank god we live in the 21st centuary! Obviously the virus would have to be modified to limit its effective range and longevity , but you can surely see how much nastier than nukes this could get ?


[edit on 24-4-2010 by TrueBrit]

reply to post by TrueBrit


My step mother works for the US navy, out of san diego/north island. Once upon a time, she visited a conference in D.C. where she heard a wack of interesting info, things ranging from the origins of aids, to a particularly terrifying bio-weapon, which could be released at a certain time (perhaps daylight?) and would spread and destroy all day (or for as long as there is sunlight?) and by nightfall, the bio-agents would die out (lack of sun??)

but that does sound like a pretty clean-cut weapon if I've ever heard of one.

This is terrifying. Don't they realize what could happen if this virus was released? Our planet might be devastated. All life could be wiped out. As far as I am concerned, it is irresponsible to develop this technology. There is no way to be 100% sure it won't escape/be stolen.

There might not be much to fear if the catalyst does not work very quickly. Chlorophyl, which is present in plants, performs a similar function than the catalyst in the article. IChlorophyl splits water into oxygen and hydrogen. Nobody here would think of Chlorophyl as potential weapon.

Unless the catalyst works much faster than chlorophyl, it may not be much of a concern. Another thing that may make the catalyst less worrisome is that it could be poisoned.

Many catalysts shut down if they are poisoned, or tampered by impurities. The catalyst in the article may work great in pure water, but may shut down if there are impurities in the water like salt, organic compounds, etc. If this is the case, one could not expect the catalyst to work if it were thrown in a lake or on a person because the catalyst would get poisoned.

What if one day, our cells stopped regenerating.
What if we are burning from the inside out.

reply to post by SWCCFAN


It wouldn't be so damn terrifying if it didn't rely on the sun to work. It seems very similar to the movie Legend.

Originally posted by doctor j and inmate c5779
My first thought was, the virus gets released into our oceans and dries up all our water and turns it into the gases hydrogen and oxygen.

 

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And nuclear fusion starts from all of that hydrogen, with the oxygen just fueling it, and good bye Earth, hello binary star solar system!

reply to post by SWCCFAN


My first reaction is in line with the others. Have they not read Kurt Vonnegut Jr's "Cat's Cradle" before?

John finds Felix Hoenikker's son, Frank, in San Lorenzo, where he has managed to obtain a high-ranking government position from the dictator in exchange for a piece of ice-nine. At the time Jonah arrives, the dictator is badly ailing, however, and states his intention to make Frank his successor. Feeling guilty and afraid of the offer, the latter abruptly hands the presidency to John, who begrudgingly accepts.

The dictator later uses ice-nine to commit suicide as he lies dying from inoperable cancer. Consistent with the properties of ice-nine, the dictator's corpse instantly turns into a block of solid ice at normal room temperature.

During John's inauguration festivities, an airplane crash into the dictator's seaside palace causes his still-frozen body to tumble into the ocean, after which all the water in the world's seas, rivers, and groundwater also turns into ice-nine, causing the death of almost all life forms in a matter of days.

en.wikipedia.org...

Could this become an ice-nine scenario?

Wow. If this comes to reality the implications are enormous. On one hand we have an incredible source of energy, on the other the weaponization of such technology is more frightening that nuclear! You can bet that if this technology is even getting close to reality and production the mad minds at the top of the DOD/Pentagon are already dreaming up new ways to threaten, I mean provide security for us. On the other our energy woes could be solved? I wonder how much hydrogen could be extracted per million gallons of ocean water? I wonder how long it would take to devestate an entire country's water supply? Hmmmm...lots of wondering on this one.

reply to post by texas thinker



Well a more sinster Idea would be to drop the virus in a rather large quanity in a lake or bay in the early morning. Then in the afternoon give a source of Ignition.

you would have the world's largest fuel air explosive!

Who needs nukes now ....

Put it in the ocean's and you could litterly expload the atmosphere.

I smell conspiracy.

President Obama Visits MIT to Promote Clean Energy. "During his visit to MIT, President Obama met with several leading researchers in new energy technologies, among them Prof. Angela Belcher."

This virus research is led by none other than Prof. Angela Belcher.

Originally posted by ararisq
I smell conspiracy.

President Obama Visits MIT to Promote Clean Energy. "During his visit to MIT, President Obama met with several leading researchers in new energy technologies, among them Prof. Angela Belcher."

This virus research is led by none other than Prof. Angela Belcher.

How is this a conspiracy? The president met with a leading researcher in new energy technology. This virus has the capability of creating a fuel from water.

Anything can be used for nefarious purposes. You can "weaponize" a solar panel if you use it to charge a taser.

Originally posted by danj3ris
Anything can be used for nefarious purposes. You can "weaponize" a solar panel if you use it to charge a taser.

Or you can sharpen the edges and make it into a deadly throwing disk.

My first thought was, the virus gets released into our oceans and dries up all our water and turns it into the gases hydrogen and oxygen. But just as with nuclear tech, haarp, hlc, and everything else, all we can do is just hope these people know what they are doing... However, I`m predicting nanotech to bring about the end of the world. Limitations needs to be placed on this kind of tech exponentially moreso than we have managed to do so far with nukes.


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Originally posted by Nutter
Could this become an ice-nine scenario?

It's not surprising that of all places one would mention such. How ever what is a bit of a surprise is the over all media that mentions "ice 9".

For example the classic and most common, among others;

Kurt Vonnegut in his novel Cat's Cradle

Then further searches show some interesting borrowings of the term;

Ice-nine

ice 9 cia