A New Way To Make Water, And Fuel Cells

Roland Piquepaille writes "You probably know that it is easy to combine hydrogen and oxygen to make water. After all, this chemical reaction is known for more than two centuries. But now, researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) have discovered a new way to make water. As states the UIUC report, 'not only can they make water from unlikely starting materials, such as alcohols, their work could also lead to better catalysts and less expensive fuel cells.' But be warned: don't read the technical paper itself. It could win an obfuscated contest — if such a contest existed for scientific papers." Yet another advance in fuel cell technology; we discussed a different one just the other day.

Re:sigh

[florescent_beige]

Right, alcohol fuel cells [fctec.com] already exist.

My reading of the blurb leads me to think their apparent contribution is finding an iridium based metal hydride that catalyzes both the oxidation and reduction sides, which I never thought about and didn't know platinum couldn't do. Your example above leads me to think it can so I'm wondering what this is really all about.

Also we have a new reason not to RTFA. The summary forbids us from doing so.

Re:Wow

[bassman2k]

Making water from alcohol! Alchemists have been trying to transmute one element into another for hundreds of years!

Neither water nor alcohol are elements.