This Molecule Has Saved Billions of Lives, How Do We Make It Without Killing Ourselves?

Fritz Haber was brilliant. His discovery of the Haber-Bosch process to produce ammonia from the air was a miracle, allowing for the vast production of fertilizer which lead to our ability to feed the billions of people on our planet, rightfully earning Haber an Nobel Prize.

Yet, he also produced chlorine gas and conducted experiments that eventually lead to the development of pesticide gases such as Zyklon B, used to kill millions of Jewish people in Nazi concentration camps. I'm not sure where Haber would have fallen when his soul was weighed upon his passing from this Earth, but I know we couldn't feed as many as we feed without the Haber-Bosch process.

Today's SciShow video explains how the Haber-Bosch process produces carbon dioxide and some of the alternative processes that chemists are exploring that wouldn't produce carbon dioxide along the way.

Why Lithium Is Dangerous But PERFECT For Batteries

Our chemistry book has a diagram of a battery in the electrochemistry chapter, and I discuss that battery for a bit before explaining to my students that the basics of ACME (anode, cathode, metallic path, electrolyte) hold for every battery but that the engineering of modern lithium-ion batteries is far different from the diagram in the book.

This video - again leaning into the algorithm-rewarded longer and longer format - explains some battery basics involving the activity series, the history of the development of the lithium-ion battery, and the methods of fiery failure when the battery overheats.

This is, as Dr Derek says, a technology that has allowed our modern, battery-dependent world.

WaterLight - The clean energy revolution is here

I'm skeptical, I will admit it.

I want this light to work; I really do. But I also have to apply the Sagan standard to the light, and none of these videos or articles seem to provide that extraordinary evidence to me.

I keep coming back to the fact that the whole thing just sounds like a nicely engineered magnesium/copper cell with salt water (or urine) as the electrolytic path between the electrodes.

The magnesium electrode is going to run out. That's what anodes do.

Read more, please, and explain to me how I'm wrong. Sadly I haven't been able to find an actual schematic of the WaterLight anywhere.

• Dezeen article
• Inceptive Mind article
• Time article
• OurFutureEnergy article (that says pretty much what I say above)
• edina energy website (the WaterLight company - that seems to purport just shy of perpetual energy for zero cost)

Ceramicist Uses Science To Create Sculptures Inspired By Nature

I stumbled upon the above video in searching for totally different ceramic stuff on YouTube, but I was immediately taken by the magnetic stalactites that the artist is creating in the video still.

He mentions in the video that he creates them by using a magnetic clay of his own devising between two super-strong magnets. 

Then the video goes through him using his ceramic as an electrode - which inherently doesn't make sense to me since ceramics are naturally non-conductive - in what appears to be a copper (II) sulfate solution and using a current to grow copper crystals on the ceramics.

Then the gold, pocked inner surface of other ceramic bowls showed up, and I was blown away with the beauty.

So I went searching the guy out to see just how much one of his pieces would cost me - assuming fully that I wasn't going to be able to afford it.

My first hit was for a reporter on NPR's MarketPlace with the same name, who clearly couldn't be the same guy. Then my second Google hint was the same guy's Twitter feed where he describes himself as "MarketPlace reporter, ceramicist". I then found his ceramics-focused Instagram account and knew I had the right guy.

Apparently this dude has a few disparate interests.

High demand and prices for lithium send mines into overdrive

Source - NPR article

We need lithium.

We didn't used to need nearly as much lithium as we do now, and we're going to need way more lithium going forward because lithium is used to make pretty much every high tech battery - like those in electric vehicles. Those batteries need a whole lot of lithium.

I've posted about the one lithium mine in the United States and how it's running into conflicts with environmentalists over the destruction of habitat for Tiehm's buckwheat.

Today's article from NPR - which also has a 7-minute audio story in case you'd rather just listen to the story - shows some photos from the aforementioned Silver Peak mine in Nevada and explores other possible sources of lithium including seawater and geothermal power plant brine. Sadly they don't go into the reason lithium is so useful: its position at the top of the activity series and its relative low density making it a great way to store energy in small masses.

Why Rust Batteries May Be the Future of Energy - Iron Air Battery Technology

Rust! Un-rust! Rust! Un-rust!

Seems pretty simple...of course, the devil is in the details.

This video analyzes the possibility of an iron/air-based battery system for electricity storage, looking at where iron/air would be possible replacements as well as where they are not suitable replacements for lithium batteries.

Solar Desalination Skylight by Henry Glogau

I am amazed by people who can develop this beautiful a solution to multiple problems.

The light described above seems to - and it's so perfect that I'm a little skeptical as to the science - purify salt water through simple evaporation while producing a concentrated salt brine that can then be used to power a 5V LED strip to provide light into homes that have no electricity.

I'm stunned.

An electrolytic cell cartoon from @difluorine

I really like this cartoon.

Big thanks to @difluorine for posting this and giving the world permission to use it in classes.

The cuteness of the big-headed figures and the scientific accuracy of everything just makes me shine with happiness.

And in case I ever need the black and white version...