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Dark Oxygen

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steve_bank

Diabetic retinopathy and poor eyesight. Typos ...
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Listened to a BBC radio reporter last night.

There is a theory that a natural deep sea electrolysis processes exists producing oxygen and hydrogen form seawater. The idea being if done artificially it could solve sole energy problems.

Clais have been made of capturing the oxygen using a deep sea lander, and agreements ensued over exterminate controls and contamination.

A chemist argued the theory violates basic principles, 'a stone does not roll up hill by itself' terrine does a chemical reaction.. You can;t get arouned Laws Of Thermodynamics.

Dark oxygen electrolysis, a process where deep-sea polymetallic nodules naturally split seawater into oxygen and hydrogen, does not produce net energy, but rather acts as a "geo-battery" driven by the high internal electrical potential (approx.
) of the metals. While the nodules produce oxygen, it is a chemical reaction that consumes the internal chemical potential of the nodules.
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www.bbc.com

Dark oxygen made by deep sea 'batteries'

The discovery that lumps of metal on the seafloor produce oxygen raises questions over plans to mine the deep ocean.
www.bbc.com www.bbc.com

Scientists have discovered “dark oxygen” being produced in the deep ocean, apparently by lumps of metal on the seafloor.

About half the oxygen we breathe comes from the ocean. But, before this discovery, it was understood that it was made by marine plants photosynthesising - something that requires sunlight.

Here, at depths of 5km, where no sunlight can penetrate, the oxygen appears to be produced by naturally occurring metallic “nodules” which split seawater - H2O - into hydrogen and oxygen.

Several mining companies have plans to collect these nodules, which marine scientists fear could disrupt the newly discovered process - and damage any marine life that depends on the oxygen they make.
High-seas drama over an ocean treasure trove
Norway approves controversial deep-sea mining
Historic ocean treaty agreed after decade of talks
NOC/NHM/NERC SMARTEX Metallic nodules on the Pacific seafloor at 4,000m depthNOC/NHM/NERC SMARTEX
The potato-sized metal nodules look like rocks, littering parts of the deep seabed

“I first saw this in 2013 - an enormous amount of oxygen being produced at the seafloor in complete darkness,” explains lead researcher Prof Andrew Sweetman from the Scottish Association for Marine Science. “I just ignored it, because I’d been taught - you only get oxygen through photosynthesis.

“Eventually, I realised that for years I’d been ignoring this potentially huge discovery,” he told BBC News.
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www.nature.com

Evidence of dark oxygen production at the abyssal seafloor - Nature Geoscience

Oxygen is generated abiotically at the abyssal seafloor in the presence of polymetallic nodules, potentially by seawater electrolysis, according to in situ chamber and ex situ incubation experiments.
www.nature.com www.nature.com
 
Loren Pechtel said:
I can't imagine it has a useful energy density.
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What is “it”?
If O2 is being produced naturally, that’s useful. Any significant contribution the global oxygen balance is “useful”. Standing rain forests, oceanic algae, and maybe these metallic nodules are “useful” to any and all obligate aerobes.
“Energy density” is irrelevant.
 
Elixir said:
Loren Pechtel said:
I can't imagine it has a useful energy density.
Click to expand...
What is “it”?
If O2 is being produced naturally, that’s useful. Any significant contribution the global oxygen balance is “useful”. Standing rain forests, oceanic algae, and maybe these metallic nodules are “useful” to any and all obligate aerobes.
“Energy density” is irrelevant.
Click to expand...
Yeah, this seems like it could at best exist as a catalyst of an ongoing process using the energy differential of the atmosphere and the sea floor. Its less about energy density than it is about structure.

The existence of naturally catalyzed water cracking could also hint that oxygen was being produced in the early earth through similar processes.
 
Jarhyn said:
Its less about energy density than it is about structure.
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Zackly! This may, or may not be a significant contributor to the global O2 balance and/or a significant metals resource. I dont see where that math is at all settled.
 
Elixir said:
Jarhyn said:
Its less about energy density than it is about structure.
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Zackly! This may, or may not be a significant contributor to the global O2 balance and/or a significant metals resource. I dont see where that math is at all settled.
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Another interesting aspect is that unless the ratio of the metals and structure is already "perfect" for the outcome, we can study the mechanism and make a much more effective structure with a much thinner catalytic surface and drop objects with that property ourselves, should the need arise due to oxygenator die-off.

Personally, I want to know what the effect is and whether an industrial process can be born of it.
 
Elixir said:
Loren Pechtel said:
I can't imagine it has a useful energy density.
Click to expand...
What is “it”?
If O2 is being produced naturally, that’s useful.
Click to expand...
Is it?
Elixir said:
Any significant contribution the global oxygen balance is “useful”. Standing rain forests, oceanic algae, and maybe these metallic nodules are “useful” to any and all obligate aerobes.
“Energy density” is irrelevant.
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There's no shortage of oxygen; In fact, there's rather too much of it - aerobic organisms can generally live with a lot less than is currently available, and if there were a few percent less, wildfires would be significantly less common and less dangerous.

Carbon Dioxide is far more significant, and more atmospheric oxygen means more fire, and hence more carbon dioxide and less timber. Whether that's important gets very complex, because methane is significant too, and less fire means more rotting timber, and hence more methane.

Oxygen produced by photosynthesis is a proxy for useful reductions in atmospheric carbon dioxide; But oxygen (and hydrogen) from electrolysis of water is not.

IMO, the claim "If O2 is being produced naturally, that’s useful" is far from obvious - my gut feeling is that it's probably false, and that demonstrating whether or not it is true would be extremely hard.

Regardless, I don't see these nodules being a significant source of oxygen anyway; The thermodynamics don't seem at first glance to add up - though I freely admit that I am waiting for a lot more people to show an interest before I can be bothered to check out the details for myself.

There are hundreds of "great new ideas" each year, and 99.9% turn out to be stupid and wrong. Most of the rest turn out to be neat, but impractical.
 
Jarhyn said:
The existence of naturally catalyzed water cracking could also hint that oxygen was being produced in the early earth through similar processes.
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Maybe; And that could have implications for the use of oxygen as a marker of life when examining exoplanets, for example.

Oxygen on the early Earth (before the photosynthetic catastrophe) wouldn't have been around for long enough to do very much, as the early Earth was a highly reducing environment.

And that would have been a relief to any early life, as oxygen is seriously bad news for nucleic acids, and for broader biochemistry - post photosynthetic life has a lot of processes that protect against oxygen, and it seems likely that aerobic respiration itself may have developed as (and/or from) a defence against oxidising free radicals.
 
bilby said:
Jarhyn said:
The existence of naturally catalyzed water cracking could also hint that oxygen was being produced in the early earth through similar processes.
Click to expand...
Maybe; And that could have implications for the use of oxygen as a marker of life when examining exoplanets, for example.

Oxygen on the early Earth (before the photosynthetic catastrophe) wouldn't have been around for long enough to do very much, as the early Earth was a highly reducing environment.

And that would have been a relief to any early life, as oxygen is seriously bad news for nucleic acids, and for broader biochemistry - post photosynthetic life has a lot of processes that protect against oxygen, and it seems likely that aerobic respiration itself may have developed as (and/or from) a defence against oxidising free radicals.
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I am struck by the thought that such processes would provide locations where oxygen-producing processes would offer a source of pre-photosynthetic free radicals to create selection pressured before the "oxygen apocalypse" exploded.
 
From a search.

There is a small loss of O2. Ice cores show a long term trend.

Today fossil fuels contribute to the loss but it is tiny. There is no current or predictable threat from O2 loss.
 
bilby said:
Oxygen produced by photosynthesis is a proxy for useful reductions in atmospheric carbon dioxide; But oxygen (and hydrogen) from electrolysis of water is not.
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Very good salient point I was overlooking. Thanks!
I'm still not sure about the possible impacts of bigtime mining of metallic seafloor nodules...
 
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