#hydrogen

ramnath@nerdpol.ch
nowisthetime@pod.automat.click

Metallic nodules (such as this one being collected from the North Atlantic Ocean seafloor in 2021) can produce enough voltage to split seawater into #hydrogen and #oxygen, new research suggests. NOAA Ocean Exploration

Scientists have discovered “dark oxygen” being created on the ocean seafloor by “polymetallic nodules” that potentially support life, new research in the journal Nature Geoscience shows.

Andrew Sweetman, the study’s lead author and member of the Scottish Association for Marine Science (SAMS), believes the nodules create oxygen because they behave like natural batteries. “If you put a battery into seawater, it starts fizzing,” Sweetman told the BBC. “That’s because the electric current is actually splitting seawater into oxygen and hydrogen [which are the bubbles]. We think that’s happening with these nodules in their natural state.”

Scientists dubbed it “dark oxygen” because, as opposed to photosynthesis, which was previously thought to be responsible for the bulk of oxygen creation in the ocean, the production of dark oxygen doesn’t require sunlight. In fact, the nodules that seem to create it are far deeper than light can penetrate.

The discovery calls into question how big of a part dark oxygen truly plays in our oceans, and has the potential to completely reshape our understanding of the origin of life.

Sweetman first felt something was off in 2013 during fieldwork in the Clarion–Clipperton Zone, a mineral-rich area between Hawaii and Mexico, according to Nature. The team sent down a module to create “an enclosed microcosm of the seafloor,” the authors wrote, where they discovered oxygen.

This by itself wasn’t outside the ordinary: oxygen had been detected this deep in the ocean before, carried down by currents. However, while oxygen levels usually taper off when enclosed, the oxygen levels here had increased.

Sweetman thought it was a sensor malfunction until he had similar results years later. “I suddenly realized that for eight years I’d been ignoring this potentially amazing new process, 4,000 metres down on the ocean floor,” Sweetman told Nature.

Scientists aren’t the only ones interested in these nodules, however. Because they are covered in lithium, copper, nickel and other valuable metals used for goods like batteries and electric vehicles, multiple companies have been researching deep-sea mining to exploit the nodules, including Global Sea Mineral Resources, The Metals Company, Lockheed Martin and others.

Deep-sea mining is a controversial practice, however, because it has been linked with biodiversity loss and destruction of habitats.

https://www.ecowatch.com/dark-oxygen-discovery-seafloor.html

girlofthesea@diasporasocial.net

#hydrogen
This is a very interesting subject. Books have been written about it, and survivors have written memoirs. There are photographs and films. I only mention a few points.
May 1937 - New Jersey, USA.
- The Hindenburg disaster was caused by a combination of factors, including the use of hydrogen as the lifting gas, the design of the airship, and the weather conditions on the day of the disaster. The hydrogen caught fire due to a spark or static electricity discharge, which ignited the highly flammable gas. The disaster resulted in the deaths of 36 people, and marked the end of the era of large commercial airships.
- The German Hindenburg airship had been designed to use helium for lift, but American export restrictions on helium meant that the airship had been filled with flammable hydrogen instead. As the spectators at Lakehurst, New Jersey looked on looked on, this triumph of engineering turned to tragedy.
- Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels ordered the Hindenburg to make its first public flight in March 1936 as part of a joint 4,100-mile aerial tour of Germany with the Graf Zeppelin to rally support for a referendum ratifying the reoccupation of the Rhineland.