Op-Ed: Dark oxygen – Future value far higher than just picking up a few rocks
ByPaul Wallis
DIGITAL JOURNAL
PublishedJuly 30, 2024
The depths of the Pacific Ocean are rich in strange "rock-like" nodules that give off an electric -- and seemingly produce oxygen - Copyright AFP EVARISTO SA
The “dark oxygen” revelation is in one sense, a pretty well-known science. Two metals may react with each other in seawater, and usually cause rust in ships when they do. It’s fundamental and often irritating marine chemistry. That’s also where the “well-known” bit stops.
This is very different. Nobody knew that free oxygen could be created by a few metallic rock nodules like this. This process doesn’t generate “rust”. This might be an incredibly useful scientific asset. As industrial chemistry alone, this process could have endless applications.
The nodules that generate this oxygen are also effectively polymetallic alloys, not just one metal vs another metal. This is very new, and extremely interesting.
Rocks are usually oxides. The metals effectively extract the oxygen from their base materials. That’s pretty useful in and of itself. They also generate a low voltage electrical charge, hence the slightly unfocused talk in the media about deep sea batteries.
There’s a lot more to it than that.
The basics:
If polymetallic composition generates electrolysis, which splits compounds, what are the uses of this process?
If polymetallic materials can generate electron flow at low voltage, how do you increase the voltage?
Can different polymetallic structures generate other chemical products?
We’re at the “bang two rocks together and see what happens” stage at the moment.
For a nice change, this is also where the unlikely value of industrial cost issues becomes useful for science.
To explain – Electrolysis of anything is typically extremely expensive on any sort of industrial scale. Energy is also expensive. These rocks do both.
If you can have passive materials doing the electrolysis for you and generating electricity you’re doing nicely.
The potential chemistry IP alone is worth far more than a few rocks. There’s an extremely interesting and far more detailed YouTube video by a channel called Geo Girl on this subject. The hostess wryly mentions that this discovery is in direct contrast to her PhD thesis about the origins of oxygen on Earth.
That’s also very relevant. The world is currently suffering from huge anoxic (very low oxygen) regions, particularly around China and Japan. These areas are toxic to fish fry and marine life as well as people. Some areas off Japan produce gigantic 200kg jellyfish which destroy fish stocks and are safe from predators in low-oxygen environments.
Another huge problem is ocean acidity, which is progressively decimating coral reefs, aka major fish breeding zones and marine environment baseline structures. Fish populations and fish food quality are crashing and burning worldwide.
What if you can deliver alkaline content to the acidic seawater using a modified form of this type of electrolysis? It’s hardly out of the ballpark. This wouldn’t be a case of chucking in the equivalent of an aspirin and hoping for the best for affected marine environments. This can be an ongoing fix where it’s needed.
This would be a simple, low-cost solution for specific areas. You could simply park the modified rocks in major currents, and let the alkali do the work. It’s either that or some pretty tortuous and incredibly costly major marine geoengineering.
Now the tricky bit.
The pure science of these nodules and their potential may take a while to develop. AI can probably do the high-grunt data loads and predictive stuff a lot faster, but there’s a lot of work required. Polymetallic alloys aren’t simple. This type of electrolytic metallurgy is complex. Nor has it been used in this way before, as far as I can tell.
It’s actually almost the exact opposite of conventional metallurgical electrolysis. Typically, electrolysis is used to refine metals, not generate electrical potentials or to split specific chemicals. In this case, you also need to know what combination of elements generates what level of electrolysis to achieve what outcome.
The commercial angle, as you’d expect, is up in the air and likely to stay there for a while. I’ve worked as a writer for the mining sector, and they’re not quite as dumb as the fossil fuels sector. (Nobody but the fossil fuel sector is so dumb as to ignore all its own science.)
There’s a real chance that the mining sector might see the long-term values of this sort of IP and the practical science. It’s never been done before. It is potentially incredibly useful in so many ways.
ByPaul Wallis
DIGITAL JOURNAL
PublishedJuly 30, 2024
The depths of the Pacific Ocean are rich in strange "rock-like" nodules that give off an electric -- and seemingly produce oxygen - Copyright AFP EVARISTO SA
The “dark oxygen” revelation is in one sense, a pretty well-known science. Two metals may react with each other in seawater, and usually cause rust in ships when they do. It’s fundamental and often irritating marine chemistry. That’s also where the “well-known” bit stops.
This is very different. Nobody knew that free oxygen could be created by a few metallic rock nodules like this. This process doesn’t generate “rust”. This might be an incredibly useful scientific asset. As industrial chemistry alone, this process could have endless applications.
The nodules that generate this oxygen are also effectively polymetallic alloys, not just one metal vs another metal. This is very new, and extremely interesting.
Rocks are usually oxides. The metals effectively extract the oxygen from their base materials. That’s pretty useful in and of itself. They also generate a low voltage electrical charge, hence the slightly unfocused talk in the media about deep sea batteries.
There’s a lot more to it than that.
The basics:
If polymetallic composition generates electrolysis, which splits compounds, what are the uses of this process?
If polymetallic materials can generate electron flow at low voltage, how do you increase the voltage?
Can different polymetallic structures generate other chemical products?
We’re at the “bang two rocks together and see what happens” stage at the moment.
For a nice change, this is also where the unlikely value of industrial cost issues becomes useful for science.
To explain – Electrolysis of anything is typically extremely expensive on any sort of industrial scale. Energy is also expensive. These rocks do both.
If you can have passive materials doing the electrolysis for you and generating electricity you’re doing nicely.
The potential chemistry IP alone is worth far more than a few rocks. There’s an extremely interesting and far more detailed YouTube video by a channel called Geo Girl on this subject. The hostess wryly mentions that this discovery is in direct contrast to her PhD thesis about the origins of oxygen on Earth.
That’s also very relevant. The world is currently suffering from huge anoxic (very low oxygen) regions, particularly around China and Japan. These areas are toxic to fish fry and marine life as well as people. Some areas off Japan produce gigantic 200kg jellyfish which destroy fish stocks and are safe from predators in low-oxygen environments.
Another huge problem is ocean acidity, which is progressively decimating coral reefs, aka major fish breeding zones and marine environment baseline structures. Fish populations and fish food quality are crashing and burning worldwide.
What if you can deliver alkaline content to the acidic seawater using a modified form of this type of electrolysis? It’s hardly out of the ballpark. This wouldn’t be a case of chucking in the equivalent of an aspirin and hoping for the best for affected marine environments. This can be an ongoing fix where it’s needed.
This would be a simple, low-cost solution for specific areas. You could simply park the modified rocks in major currents, and let the alkali do the work. It’s either that or some pretty tortuous and incredibly costly major marine geoengineering.
Now the tricky bit.
The pure science of these nodules and their potential may take a while to develop. AI can probably do the high-grunt data loads and predictive stuff a lot faster, but there’s a lot of work required. Polymetallic alloys aren’t simple. This type of electrolytic metallurgy is complex. Nor has it been used in this way before, as far as I can tell.
It’s actually almost the exact opposite of conventional metallurgical electrolysis. Typically, electrolysis is used to refine metals, not generate electrical potentials or to split specific chemicals. In this case, you also need to know what combination of elements generates what level of electrolysis to achieve what outcome.
The commercial angle, as you’d expect, is up in the air and likely to stay there for a while. I’ve worked as a writer for the mining sector, and they’re not quite as dumb as the fossil fuels sector. (Nobody but the fossil fuel sector is so dumb as to ignore all its own science.)
There’s a real chance that the mining sector might see the long-term values of this sort of IP and the practical science. It’s never been done before. It is potentially incredibly useful in so many ways.
This could be, and should be, huge science.
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