Researchers have created a "quick cook" recipe for producing hydrogen.
The discovery could help lead to a future without carbon emissions that contribute to the greenhouse effect and trigger climate change, a Deep Carbon Observatory news release reported.
The more-efficient method of hydrogen production could also help researchers gain insight into the "abundance and distribution of life," such as microbes that live deep beneath the sea floor.
"In a microscopic high-pressure cooker called a diamond anvil cell (within a tiny space about as wide as a pencil lead), combine ingredients: aluminum oxide, water, and the mineral olivine. Set at 200 to 300 degrees Celsius and 2 kilobars pressure - comparable to conditions found at twice the depth of the deepest ocean. Cook for 24 hours. And voilà," news release stated, reporting on the revolutionary recipe.
Researchers have known how hydrogen is naturally created for a long time. In order to spawn hydrogen water must react with olivine, a natural yellow mineral. When the rock engages with oxygen (O) atoms from the H2O it is transformed into serpentine, a mineral that has a "scaly green-brown" surface that can be compared to snakeskin.
The process causes (H2) molecules to separate from their oxygen partners.
Current hydrogen production methods (used to power rockets and cells) "usually involve the conversion of methane (CH4), a process that produces the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2) as a byproduct. Alternatively, we can split water molecules at temperatures of 850 degrees Celsius or more - and thus need lots of energy and extra careful engineering," Jesse Ausubel, of The Rockefeller University and a founder of the DCO program, said.
Using aluminum for hydrogen production could lower the cost and risk of the process because it has the ability to operate at a lower temperature.
"Scaling this up to meet global energy needs in a carbon-free way would probably require 50 years," Ausubel said. "But a growing market for hydrogen in fuel cells could help pull the process into the market."
Advances sampling used in the research have also helped scientists learn more about microbes living in extreme locations.
They found hydrogen-metabolizing microbes living in fractured rock beneath the continents of North America and Europe are surprisingly similar to specimens Princeton researchers found 2.5 to three miles down a Johannesburg-area mine shaft.
"Two years ago we had a scant idea about what microbes are present in subsurface rocks or what they eat," Dr. Matt Schrenk of Michigan State University, said. "Since then a number of studies have vastly expanded that database. We're getting this emerging picture not only of what sort of organisms are found in these systems but some consistency between sites globally - we're seeing the same types of organisms everywhere we look."
"It is easy to understand how birds or fish might be similar oceans apart, but it challenges the imagination to think of nearly identical microbes 16,000 [kilometers] apart from each other in the cracks of hard rock at extreme depths, pressures, and temperatures" he said.
