Can we produce hydrogen with basalt?

[John Cuthber]

11 hours ago, Endy0816 said:

How would this stack up against electrolysis?

In principle, it gives you a "hydrogen mine"- you get energy from minerals; a bit like coal but (in principle) carbon free.

 

The question is, how much energy (and/ or CO2 production) does it take to get the H2.

 

Thus far, nobody knows. 

[Daumic]

12 hours ago, Endy0816 said:

How would this stack up against electrolysis?

Hydrogen produced by electrolysis is not an a primary energy, it is an energy carrier. This production needs another power source. Hydrogen produced by water oxidation of basalt is a primary energy, a sort of fossil energy  without CO2 emission.

[Endy0816]

1 hour ago, Daumic said:

Hydrogen produced by electrolysis is not an a primary energy, it is an energy carrier. This production needs another power source. Hydrogen produced by water oxidation of basalt is a primary energy, a sort of fossil energy  without CO2 emission.

 

1 hour ago, John Cuthber said:

In principle, it gives you a "hydrogen mine"- you get energy from minerals; a bit like coal but (in principle) carbon free.

 

The question is, how much energy (and/ or CO2 production) does it take to get the H2.

 

Thus far, nobody knows. 

 

Ah, okay thanks!

Was thinking might be useful during space colonization efforts using basalt readily available on the surface.

[John Cuthber]

It might be, but only if the planet has plenty of water and hydrogen is only really useful if you are doing fusion  or have lots of oxygen.

[Daumic]

13 hours ago, John Cuthber said:

It might be, but only if the planet has plenty of water and hydrogen is only really useful if you are doing fusion  or have lots of oxygen.

The planet has plenty of water in oceans and plenty of basalt in upper crust of Earth. That is a good potential of production of hydrogen. The combination of this hydrogen with atmospheric oxygen produces energy and water. The consumed oxygen is replaced by photosynthesis. The results of the whole operation is the inclusion of oxygen in basalt accompanying the oxidation of Fe2+.

[John Cuthber]

1 minute ago, Daumic said:

The planet has plenty of water

Which planet?

[Endy0816]

22 hours ago, John Cuthber said:

It might be, but only if the planet has plenty of water and hydrogen is only really useful if you are doing fusion  or have lots of oxygen.

I'm thinking O2 production and storage will be the norm(from various sources). But yeah, thinking more on it unsure if we'd ever not be better off just using electrolysis to do double duty.

Water will be an issue on most planets/moons but maybe down the line once immediate concerns are taken care of. Just a ton of basalt sitting out there and more options are always better.

[John Cuthber]

Initially, on many planets, the best thing to do with the basalt would be to hide under it.

 

We really need oxygen to live. The easiest way to get that, in many environments would be to electrolyse water (or to get plants to do much the same thing).
If we have energy to do that, we don't need hydrogen as a fuel.

We might even end up running that process in reverse.

If we use electrolysis to get oxygen then we use up water (which we also need) and get hydrogen (which we don't).

So it would make sense to react then hydrogen with some mineral to recover the hydrogen as water.
For example, you can use iron ore.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_reduced_iron#Chemistry
and get iron as  a by-product.

[Endy0816]

3 hours ago, John Cuthber said:

Initially, on many planets, the best thing to do with the basalt would be to hide under it.

 

We really need oxygen to live. The easiest way to get that, in many environments would be to electrolyse water (or to get plants to do much the same thing).
If we have energy to do that, we don't need hydrogen as a fuel.

We might even end up running that process in reverse.

If we use electrolysis to get oxygen then we use up water (which we also need) and get hydrogen (which we don't).

So it would make sense to react then hydrogen with some mineral to recover the hydrogen as water.
For example, you can use iron ore.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_reduced_iron#Chemistry
and get iron as  a by-product.

There's CO2 electrolysis too now(CO and O2). We are going to need that sweet sweet iron too though. That's the one good thing surfaces of these bodies are undepleted.

 

Would surface area make a difference for this? Was mention of moon dust smelling once in our moister air. Wondered if could be made useful.

[Daumic]

Since some years, there is a great hope in the development of EGS (enhanced geothermal system) (1). EGS combines hydraulic fracturing and deep well to extract the heat of hot rocks. The interest of EGS is it could be located everywhere on Earth.

The development of EGS is currently slowed by some problems, particularly its high cost of investment. In cases in which the hot reservoir is in basalt layer, this cost could be reduced by limewater injection:

-        the sale of hydrogen produced during some years could amortize quickly the cost of the well,

-        as we see before, the swelling during the reaction between limewater and basalt generates fracturing ; this induced fracturing could reduce the use of high pressure for mechanical fracturing.

 

(1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enhanced_geothermal_system