Speaker 0:  if you think the future of clean energy depends on digging up rare expensive metals from deep underground, think again. scientists have found a way to create hydrogen fuel using nothing but sunlight, water, and get this, conductive plastic. we're talking about a massive breakthrough that could finally make clean energy cheap enough for everyone. researcher at chalmers university have developed a way to produce hydrogen fuel without using platinum, which is currently the gold standard but is incredibly rare and expensive. by using engineered plastic nanoparticles, they've woah they've proven we can split water into fuel using just sunlight. it's a game changer because it replaces a thousand dollar an ounce metal with an abundant lab made materials. what do you think about this, john?

Speaker 1:  i love it. i love hydrogen. i love that get that we're it's still developing even though, some governments are pulling back. but, like so just to kind of set the stage, hydrogen, for those of you that don't know, it's been long considered a cornerstone of the renewable energy transition. the reason being is because it burns cleanly. the output is water. so it can serve for fuel for vehicles, industry, long duration energy storage. there's a bunch of different things. but, and i know for those of you that listen all the time, this you might have heard this before, but there's still a major challenge, producing and storing hydrogen. so producing hydrogen in an environmentally friendly way that doesn't rely on fossil fuels or rare rare earth minerals. as of right now, it does. now we have covered other technology developments that use, non rare earth metals, but still use metals. so traditional photo based systems, they split water into hydrogen and oxygen, and they require platinum as a cocatalyst to accelerate

Speaker 0:  the reaction.

Speaker 1:  so it's called an her or hydrogen evolution reaction. so platinum scarcity and high cost and gee geographical concentration, they make large scale deployments of such systems pretty much really challenging. right? so this breakthrough, it centers on electrically conductive plastics. so they're conjugated polymers that are engineered at the molecular level. so they're also both light absorbing and water compatible. and so in these experiments in the lab that these researchers were doing, they form these polymers into nanoparticles, and that increased their surface area and interaction with water molecules. and so when they expose this to simulated sunlight, the plastic particles absorb photons and generate excited electrons, and that drove the reaction, which effectively acted as kind of like a photocatalyst. and so this photocatalytic action is to what platinum traditionally does, but using cheaper and more abundant organic i am super excited about. what do you think about this? is this is is this a potential game changer for producing hydrogen? or, what do you think about this, craig?

Speaker 0:  it definitely could be a game changer. you know, i just fear hydrogen's got all this fear around it, and i'm one of those fearmongers around the explosion. you know, you're gonna make a plastic bottle. like, what are you talking about? so i like the idea that we could do it with less materials, and inexpensive materials, but we still have to understand that hydrogen and oxygen make boom. so just gotta keep that in mind. so think of it like a synthetic

Speaker 1:  make boom. lng makes boom. gas makes boom.

Speaker 0:  yes. but they don't make boom when mixed with oxygen. they need a spark. this does not.

Speaker 1:  okay.

Speaker 0:  air touches it. boom. that's the difference. it's okay. so it needs to be secure. k. that's why we've had some reluctance around, you know, leakage and all that stuff. anyway, think of it as a synthetic leaf. just as leaf uses sunlight to make food, these plastic particles soak up sunbeams and use that energy to snap water molecules apart, releasing hydrogen gas that we can use as fuel. currently, making green hydrogen is too expensive because the machines need platinum. platinum is rare, mined only in a few places, mostly russian, russia and south africa, and it's environmentally dirty to extract. use, new method use cheap carbon based plastics instead. so, you know, lower cost for hydrogen means fuel cells in cars and home heating could eventually become cheaper than gas or electric equivalents. we can see, local fuels since you don't need rare materials. any sunny country can manufacturer, can manufacture its own fuel catalyst without relying on four foreign mines. so your gas stations could be, you know, what have you, like have these big fields of these plastic things out back to make it. this, creates green hydrogen, meaning the only thing coming out of your tailpipe, or chimney is pure water vapor. it's currently in the advanced lab stage. we are likely looking at five to ten years again before you see a commercial plastic hydrogen generator in a factory or home. but, you know, there is no consumer price yet, but the raw material cost is expected to be at least 90% cheaper than current platinum catalyst. and i think if we can get to 90% cheaper, i think that will be a game changer for the hydrogen industry. so this might be the thing that tips it.

Speaker 1:  i agree. now there are still some challenges that are remaining. so the current system, it still relies on, surprisingly, vitamin c as a sacrificial chemical to sustain the reaction. and so their next milestone is overall water splitting. so producing h two and o two directly from sunlight and water without any sacrificial additives. and so the other thing is real world challenges include long term stability, scaling photocatalysts, and reactor engineering to integrate with solar concentrators. so, those are huge hurdles. and we didn't touch on the vitamin c as the sacrificial chemical, but it's interesting to note that they need that to help with the reaction, but, or to help sustain the reaction. but, i don't think those are unrealistic hurdles that they can overcome, if that makes sense.

Speaker 0:  yeah. i agree. i mean, i don't wanna be anything controversial, but, like, if you run a diesel car in europe, you gotta use that pig urine in your car. so saying vitamin c, what's the big deal? they call it blue something or other, but so, yeah, i don't think that's a huge concern. it is something that they have to have that sacrificial element. and right now, it's vitamin c. and as long as that whatever their source for that is, plentiful, renewable, all that kind of stuff are good, now they'll probably come up with a better one between now and the time this goes fully in production. so

Speaker 1:  yeah. yeah. and, see, the other thing too is the materials developed in this research, it could also influence other clean energy technologies, like a photocatalyst c o two reduction or organic photovoltaic systems. like, this isn't just for hydrogen, which i like. like, there's research, if that makes sense.

Speaker 0:  yeah. and there's a huge article on torontoslurts.com. some of these articles we made, this week are twenty minutes plus reading, go into a lot of detail. so if you really wanna dig in, go check that out. but critics are concerned, like you mentioned, about longevity. plastics usually break down under intense sunlight over time. so think of a plastic toy left in the yard or we've all left stuff out and it's just brittle or peeling or what have you or on your dashboard. so those nanoparticles need to prove they can last, for years, not weeks. yeah. alright. so the technology turns the platinum problem into a plastic solution, potentially removing the biggest financial roadblock to a global hydrogen economy. so do you think plastic powered fuel is a total game changer, or are we still too far away from ditching the gas pump? or are you conspiracy theorists to say, the oil manufacturers can't have you making, energy in your backyard with a plastic bottle, so they're gonna bury this somewhere. and think about that. so, you know, you tell me. let me know your thoughts in the comments, and, we'll, talk to you next scoop. i know, john. they might just put a stop to it. if you can build your own energy and you don't have to,

Speaker 1:  oh, you can. you can build it with metals right now. you can create your own hydrogen. right?

Speaker 0:  yeah. but come on. you know, who's gonna buy the metals. oh, fair enough. i don't know. i've never tried to build anything with platinum before, so i'm not going to, i mean, that's it's, again, different than plastic bottles, but the problem becomes, like i said, is, you can't have people just doing it because they need to make it secure and airtight and all that stuff. so there has to be a proper system in place. it shouldn't be a d a diy kind of situation

Speaker 1:  yeah. because

Speaker 0:  you end up blowing yourself up.