
Magnet doubles hydrogen yield from water splitting - thunderbong
https://cen.acs.org/articles/97/web/2019/06/Magnet-doubles-hydrogen-yield-water.html
======
p1mrx
> it roughly doubled the current density at the anode without requiring any
> additional voltage

Do I understand correctly that the magnet just makes the anode behave like a
bigger anode, and does not make the process more energy-efficient?

~~~
TaylorAlexander
Good question. Energy efficiency is what’s really important.

~~~
nomel
For generating hydrogen for use, total cost is most important. Cost reductions
are just as important as energy reductions since they both bring total cost
down. This is a potential cost reduction.

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dr_dshiv
Since this thread is about water splitting and woo, I thought I'd share my
favourite example of using radio wave resonance to burn saltwater.
[https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a2840/4271398/](https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a2840/4271398/)

Because that sounds so absolutely nutty, nobody seems to notice the published
evidence that it actually works. The energy efficiency is so-so -- but the
point is that the woo-connection creates a sort of forcefield around the
topic, preventing scientific study.

You'd hope it would produce the opposite effect. E.g, "wow, this has public
interest, let's test and disprove -- and maybe make a practical discovery"

~~~
jodrellblank
If you want it to be taken seriously, why do you - and Popular Mechanics -
describe it in such woowoo terms?

" _using radio wave resonance to burn saltwater._ " ; " _had discovered a
seemingly impossible phenomenon: a way to burn salt water by exposing it to
radio waves._ " \- The salt water isn't burning, burning Hydrogen isn't
seemingly impossible, separating Hydrogen from water isn't seemingly
impossible. The description is nothing like what's actually happening.

 _the effect can be achieved with a much lower energy catalyst: radio waves
are present in everything from microwaves to televisions._ \- ??? is this
trying to imply you can mine radio waves from a television and use them for
this? What a bizarre sentence.

 _" Nobody is claiming that you get more energy out than you put in," he
says._; _They even envision a future in which a vehicle can run off its radio
's frequency waves._

.. is that not getting more out than you put in? A vehicle which generates
radio waves, uses them to split seawater, burns the gas, uses that power to
generate the radio waves, and also motion? Then the burnt H and O turn into
ash (H2O) and drip back into the "fuel" tank to be burned again? That's not
water as a "fuel", that's an overunity machine, perpetual motion.

If they're not claiming you get more energy out than you put in, _stop
claiming that_. In the video the inventor is talking about how their Sterling
Engine "could be a car engine if you wanted" but if you're putting in mains
electric power to this, you'd be better off connecting that to an electric
motor and saying "that could be a car engine" \- it couldn't, it's mains
electric powered.

This is a neat electrolysis without electrodes idea, but why(??) is it being
presented as the woowoo idea "water powered car"?

~~~
dr_dshiv
I presented it in woo woo terms to make my point. Popular Mechanics put it in
woo woo terms to sell copies.

The point here is: holy crap, radio waves can provide electrodeless water
splitting _and physicists don 't care_ because it sounds like woo.

Of course the public and the press will see salt water burning and freak out
-- but that excitement shouldn't be a reason for physicists to ignore the
phenomena.

~~~
yetihehe
> radio waves can provide electrodeless water splitting and physicists don't
> care

Probably they don't care, because as soon as that water is split, it is
ignited and burned again, so you can't have any hydrogen, you have just
changed some rf energy into heat, losing some energy into heat in rf setup...
It's easier to just heat something directly with elecrticity. Now if someone
invented a way for oxygen and hydrogen split that way to remain split for more
than milliseconds, physicists would be more interested.

~~~
phkahler
>> Now if someone invented a way for oxygen and hydrogen split that way to
remain split for more than milliseconds, physicists would be more interested

Sounds exactly like a cool research area for physicists.

~~~
dicknuckle
Isn't that exactly what this does?
[https://youtu.be/r3_UdBvyicU](https://youtu.be/r3_UdBvyicU) There has been a
few videos about it on the Cody's Lab YouTube channel

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nicodds
This is one of the magnetic field effect on radical pairs recombination.

Once you put a magnet near the site of a chemical reaction where radical pairs
are formed, the rate of the reaction may be changed, due to the additional
energy levels introduced by the spin-magnetic field interaction.

Anyway, in order to have such kind of effects, you need an energy intensive
process responsible for the radical pairs creation.

~~~
nicodds
This is a good introduction to the topic:
[https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/cr00033a001](https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/cr00033a001)

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danw1979
The article says that "about half" of the world's hydrogen is made by steam
reformation of methane, and only 4% is made by electrolysis of water.

Where does the other 46% come from ?

~~~
simonh
Interesting, from Wikipedia: There are four main sources for the commercial
production of hydrogen: natural gas, oil, coal, and electrolysis; which
account for 48%, 30%, 18% and 4% of the world’s hydrogen production
respectively.

All the hydrocarbon sources are apparently processed by steam reforming.

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mkj
Is there any chance a similar magnetic effect could be used to improve
performance of rechargeable batteries?

~~~
hoseja
I don't think those have chemistries with triplet states.

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pkrein
Would this make hydrogen fuel cells (the reverse of electrolysis) have double
the power density as well? That would be meaningful for reducing hydrogen fuel
cell weight and cost per vehicle.

~~~
skykooler
I doubt it. The reason this works is that when combining oxygen atoms from two
water molecules to produce an oxygen molecule, they need to have parallel
spins; the magnet aligns the spins and therefore speeds up this process.
However, when breaking the O2 molecule to combine it with hydrogen (in a fuel
cell), the atoms are already parallel in spin and are going to an unordered
state, so there's no benefit to attempting to align them.

~~~
daveloyall
Ok, thank you. How about lead-acid battery charging or discharging?

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hinkley
> After testing a variety of different anode materials, the ICIQ team found
> that the effect depended on the degree of anode magnetization and did not
> work at all with nonmagnetic anodes. This suggests that the effect is linked
> to the electron spin states of oxygen intermediates bound to the catalyst,
> says Galán-Mascarós.

So how do the production rates of magnetic versus non-magnetic anodes compare?

~~~
hanniabu
Sounds like non-zero vs zero

~~~
nitrogen
No, that is just referring to the magnetic enhancement. A nonmagnetic
electrode will still work for electrolysis. The op has a fair question -- what
is the quantified gain of this magnetic effect over traditional electrolysis?

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cr0sh
This is very interesting, but at the same time it seems like something the
"free energy" people would have done and found a long time ago?

Maybe they did, but were dismissed out of hand due to everything else in their
woo-based world?

Or maybe they tried it and saw no (or little) difference; the article did say
that the effect wasn't shown to happen with every non-magnetic anode material
- and I doubt that the "free energy" researchers tried a particular nickel-
coated foam type of anode...

All of that aside, I do wonder if there are any "off-the-shelf" anode
materials whereby one could experiment with this effect?

~~~
carapace
Short answer: Yes.

If you take the time to trawl through Rex Research you would find this and a
bunch of other stuff. _Most_ of it is BS but the bits that aren't... there is
some mind-blowing stuff that just hasn't reached critical mass in the
collective consciousness yet.

For example, the device of Przemyslaw Lagiewka, which has to be seen to be
believed (there are videos):

> A small Fiat 126p, going 45 km per hour, was driven into a concrete wall.
> The bumper was not damaged. The driver wore no seatbelts. The inertial
> reaction, which should have thrown him onto the hood, did not occur. The
> stopping distance was only 16 centimetres.

[http://www.rexresearch.com/lagiewka/lagiewka.htm](http://www.rexresearch.com/lagiewka/lagiewka.htm)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJ6_bjnxeco](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJ6_bjnxeco)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-h56N_A3rY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-h56N_A3rY)

------
jacknews
so what is the actual efficiency now - ie what is the energy content of the h2
produced, compared to the energy input??

~~~
Beltiras
Sibling comment has the info. This is not an increase in energy efficiency
just conversion efficiency. You pump in more amperes over the same voltage and
manage to split twice the amount of water with the same size array. Still
great thou. Anything that reduces the infrastructure needs to produce H2 is a
good thing.

~~~
jacknews
thanks, and in fact the wikipedia entry for electrolysis also has lots of
interesting info.

It seems efficiency is between 70-85% depending on method.

Interestingly it seems there is potential to be >100% electrical efficiency if
the water is also heated.

I can envisage concentrated heat-and-PV electrolysis plants.

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faissaloo
So we know what happens when you put the magnet at the anode, now what happens
if you put it at the cathode? Hell, what happens when you put magnets on both?

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hinkley
Aren't there field lines between the anode and cathode in an electrolysis
system? You have current moving, so there must be. I wonder how those affect
the process.

------
gpvos
This is a fairly obvious thing to try, and indeed one of the commenters writes
that he discovered this already sometime after 1982 (too bad he is not more
precise).

------
wyxuan
Water splitting? Why didn’t they call it hydrolysis?

~~~
_0ffh
No idea, but the complaint sounds like hairolysis. :-p

~~~
chrisweekly
I see what you did there. Well-played.

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markee_93
Jesse would be happy.

------
th0ma5
Geez makes you want to put a magnet on just about anything to see what
happens.

~~~
Fjolsvith
I walk around all day on hard concrete and my feet hurt at the end of each
day. Found some ankle bracelets with little magnets in them and started
wearing them, and my feet quit hurting entirely. I stopped taking pain killers
altogether!

~~~
kirubakaran
Placebo is one hell of a drug.

~~~
arcticbull
It’s effectiveness also correlates positively with our belief in modern
medicine; it’s becoming more effective over time. Truly fascinating.

~~~
phs318u
Indeed. But we’ve got to ask - is the increasing effectiveness of the placebo
effect correlated with a dumbing down of the population (eg the increasing
prevalence of anti-scientific views and the mistrust of authorities)? If so,
one could foresee a time when the underlying anti-scientific views are
cemented by some kind of widespread “scandal”, at which point one might expect
the placebo affect to start diminishing in efficacy (if it is related to a
belief in modern medicine). So, long-term it may be a bad sign.

EDITED: spelling and grammar fixes.

------
andrewstuart
Always with the magnets.

[https://getyarn.io/yarn-
clip/b0c0a501-221b-4d7b-9336-0cd0e84...](https://getyarn.io/yarn-
clip/b0c0a501-221b-4d7b-9336-0cd0e848affb)

I know someone who was telling me with great sincerity about how she just puts
a couple of magnets in with her wash and far less soap is needed.

I told her that I only go with things where I can look up the science behind
it.

~~~
Scoundreller
Meanwhile I find that clothes wash just fine with 1/2-1/4 of the recommended
amounts unless they're soiled.

Makes the colours last longer too.

~~~
Nition
There are scam products - "laundry disks" or "laundry balls" \- which take
advantage of the fact that clothes still get pretty clean without using any
powder. You use the thing (which costs $50+), don't use powder, and it
something something magnets something something ions and wow your laundry gets
clean!

~~~
asah
Meanwhile, wool dryer balls are fantastic low-tech solution to static cling!

~~~
Nition
Most dryer balls also claim to reduce drying time, which is also untrue,
although at least the claims are more grounded in physical possibility than
the washing machine ones.

~~~
Alex3917
Your wet sheets aren't going to dry if they're effectively tied in a knot.
It's not some sort of mystery of physics.

~~~
DonHopkins
If the toss a brick in the dryer, that will prevent your sheets from getting
tied in a knot.

~~~
saagarjha
It'll instead prevent you from visiting the local laundromat ever again.

------
chillingeffect
not kidding here, but could this shed new light onthose
homeopaths/acupuncturists who put magnets on their wrists, etc. to increase
blood flow?

~~~
taneq
I actually talked to one of their sales people a while ago out of idle
curiosity, and within five minutes felt like my head was going to explode from
"that's not how any of this works".

I went into it with as open a mind as I could muster, and was told the
following:

\- The magnets are arranged so that there's a positive magnetic field in the
middle surrounded by a ring of negative magnetic field

\- Blood cells are clumped and this arrangement of magnetic fields pulls apart
the clumps, making the blood cells more efficient

\- The magnetic field also ionizes your blood, giving the cells a positive
charge so they can hold more oxygen (!)

\- They don't claim that it's a medical device because pharmacies won't let
them (so as to get more money from doctors prescribing medicine)

\- The sales girl's pet cat is way more friendly since starting to use one of
their magnet things

I checked their website which yielded further such gems as:

\- Magnotherapy has been used for centuries by humans and animals to aid
healing

\- It is reported that Cleopatra wore a small magnet on her forehead to
preserve her beauty and youthfulness!

\- Our magnets use a strong, multi-directional force of magnetism called
‘Central Reverse Polarity®’ also referred to as ‘CRP®’, to mimic the expensive
professional equipment used by physiotherapists. Molecules that exit a CRP®
field are more efficient than those produced by standard magnets.

\- The use of a Central Reverse Polarity magnetic field therefore has a three-
fold effect on the body’s energy levels (talking at a molecular level);

\-- It activates the release of energy

\-- It boosts the volume of stored energy

\-- It acts as a catalyst by providing energy to increase the rate of chemical
reactions.

tl;dr no.

~~~
brownbat
Reminded me of this episode of Patient Zero, which covers some fringe
treatments for Lyme disease: [https://www.patientzeropodcast.com/podcast-
episodes/episode-...](https://www.patientzeropodcast.com/podcast-
episodes/episode-5)

Spoiler: Don't try to fight bacterial infections with lasers.

~~~
msds
Eh, with a big enough laser, I'll guarantee a 100% success rate at killing any
bacteria infecting you.

~~~
thombat
Yep, like the boast on bottles of bleach: "Kills the AIDS virus!". So does
sunlight, soap, drying up, in fact almost anything besides "being kept in a
body fluid at ambient temperature"

~~~
taneq
Obligatory XKCD quote: "When reading that a particular compound kills cancer
cells in a petri dish, remember so does a hand gun."

------
tiku
My first thought was that it works because it aligns the molecules in the
anode, making it more efficient?

------
delinquentme
Remember:

At this point in our technological competency, all easy advancements are gone.

Oh wait.

