SHArK Abstract/Summary

SHArK (Solar Hydrogen Activity Research Kit) with Pipette Method: Distributed research project examines how electrochemical responsiveness of metal oxides to visible light varies with concentration and droplet size.

The SHArK project is a distributed research project begun at the Univ. of Wyoming. It hopes to find a combination of metal oxides that will absorb visibile light and spilt water with the absorbed energy.

This research explores the potential of Cobalt, Aluminum, and Iron oxides as catalysts for spliting water into O2 and H2 gas using only sunlight. It also explores the effect of varying droplet size and metal nitrate concentration when using the pipette method to prepare test plates for the SHArK project.

A hydrogen-based economy will not be feasible without a more efficient method of producing hydrogen gas. The SHArK project is a distributed research project that engages high school and undergraduate students. In the pipette method metal nitrates in acidic solution are pipetted onto a conducting glass plate and are then baked in an oven at 500 degrees celsius for 24 hours. While in the oven, the metal nitrates oxidize to metal oxides. The plates are then rinsed and placed in a small aquarium-like tank in .1 molar sodium hydroxide solution. An electrode is connected to the plate, a counter electrode is connected to a graphite rod which is submerged in the electrolyte solution. A voltage is applied across these two electrodes. This applied voltage is called the bias. Each plate is usually scanned twice, one with a positive .5 volt bias and once with a negative .5 volt bias. Electronics controlled by a computer measure the current passing through the circut in miliAmps. Electrochemical activity of the metal oxides is examined by analyzing changes in current in the circut. When the detected current increases it is assumed that an n-type metal oxide is donating electrons to the current and thus increasing the current. When the detected current decreases it is assumed that a p-type metal oxide has opened up a hole and electrons have sank into it and thus decreasing the current. A 532 nm (which is actually a frequency-doubled 1064nm CO2 laser IIRC) green laser pointer is used to test the metal oxides for visibile light-induced electrochemistry. The laser is mounted on a LEGO(Registered Trademark) platform and LEGO Mindstorms(R) robotics control two mirrors that reflect the laser beam onto the test plate. The computer software imagines the plate as a grid of 180 collumns and 180 rows for a total of 32,400 individual data points per scan. For each data point, the computer turns on the laser, records the current, turns off the laser, and tells the robotics to move the mirrors to aim the laser at the next point. The robotics move the laser beam like a typewriter; single steps to the right until they reach the end of a row, then a long step back to the left hand edge, and a single step down. The computer ouputs a text file consisting of 32,400 numbers which is then processed using an open source program called imageJ which in turn assigns a color to each value and creates a 180 pixel by 180 pixel image of the scan. Each plate generates two images; one scanned with a positive bias and the other with a negative bias. Because the SHArK project is a distributed research project, it's website is also home to it's results database. Anyone can view the results so far of the project if they create a user account and all researchers can post their results to the main results archive.

Pentacene

Pentacene might be aromatic. It is Five fused benzene rings. And IBM took a sweet picture of it using(I guess) the pauli exclusion principle quantum force. Which doesn't jive with my science learnings. But I do not know all of quantum mechanics, and as soon as I learn how this here buisness was done I will blog about it at length. Until then, it gets a very high "awesome" rating from me. Go IBM. Yay especially for companies funding pure research!

Here is the link.

Pentacene Pics!

Elementeo is a sweet Card Game!

A new board game called elementeo is available online for 35 dollars. I expect it to be quite fun for any junior scientists out there. Or some older scientists looking to play like junior scientists. Or some older scientists who are worried junior is reading to much history and not enough science. Or for some older scientists who have a non-scientist significant other and want a fun way to bring them up to speed on science. Party on yall. I want to play this game so if any of you readers get it, please send me some pics and a review of the gameplay.

This is a Tasty Science Article

Article

New SHArK Data!

This scan was performed on an Aluminum-Cobalt-Iron plate. We called the plate P2, because it was the second plate to be prepared by the pipette method. The lower right hot-spot is electrochemical activity from cupric oxide. The two hot spots on the left are cobalt oxide. The two spots at the top right are copper. The water line caused the distortion at the top of the scan. The spots are in different places because light travels through air at a different angle than it travels through water. See Snells law. Email me for this SHArK project data sheet.

Nouveau

Nouveau is an open source project. It aims to get 3D acceleration from nVidia cards. nVidia is a company that makes graphics cards. nVidia writes software that runs on the cards but copywrites this software. Open source software is not copywrited and is written by groups such as nouveau. If nouveau is successful, I will be able to use my Microsoft Xbox to push high-definition video to my television. The Xbox has an nVidia card and tv-out, but without hardware acceleration, it will not be able to put high-def on the screen. An Xbox is ideal for use as a MythTV frontend. MythTV is basically TiVo.

nouveau.freedesktop.org/wiki

SHArK project results are in!

The SHArK project produced results today. But don't get all excited. This picture is exactly what the scanning station recorded. Something has gone wrong, we are checking for errors in the scanning station. This was a plate with combinations of Cobalt, Aluminum, Copper, and Iron deposited by the pipette method. Each deposition was duplicated somewhere else on the slide. Each droplet measured precisely 5.0 microliters. Each droplet had a .35 molar concentration of metal nitrate salt, .015 molar concentration of nitric acid, and a .6 molar concentration of ammonium nitrate. The plate was prepared 8/31/09 and fired for approximately 24 hrs. Finally it was scanned 9/2/09. It was placed in a 0.1 molar sodium hydroxide solution and a .5 volt positive bias was applied to it.

This plate is plate P1 because it is the first plate prepared by the pipette method.

The results are unsatisfactory.

I can be emailed at krum.spencer@gmail.com if anyone wants the text output before I put it up on the internet somewhere.