From Chemical Gardens to Fuel Cells: Generation of Electrical Potential and Current Across Self-Assembling Iron Mineral Membranes
Abstract
We examine the electrochemical gradients that form across chemical garden membranes and investigate how self-assembling, out-of-equilibrium inorganic precipitates—mimicking in some ways those generated in far-from-equilibrium natural systems—can generate electrochemical energy. Measurements of electrical potential and current were made across membranes precipitated both by injection and solution interface methods in iron-sulfide and iron-hydroxide reaction systems. The battery-like nature of chemical gardens was demonstrated by linking multiple experiments in series which produced sufficient electrical energy to light an external light-emitting diode (LED). This work paves the way for determining relevant properties of geological precipitates that may have played a role in hydrothermal redox chemistry at the origin of life, and materials applications that utilize the electrochemical properties of self-organizing chemical systems.
Additional Information
© 2015 WILEY-VCH Verlag. Received: March 19, 2015 Published online.--- This research was carried out at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under a contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration with support by the NASA Astrobiology Institute (Icy Worlds), and supported by a JPL Planetary Instrument Advanced Concept Development grant (grant number S40AC1/42.14.101.07). L.M.B. was supported by the NAI through the NASA Postdoctoral Program, administered by Oak Ridge Associated Universities through a contract with NASA. JHEC is supported by the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (grant number FIS2013-48444-C2-2-P). We acknowledge useful discussions with members of the NAI Thermodynamics, Disequilibrium, and Evolution Focus Group, and thank Dr. Bethany Theiling for the table-of-contents photo.
Attached Files
Supplemental Material - ange_201501663_sm_miscellaneous_information.pdf
Files
Name | Size | Download all |
---|---|---|
md5:22608fe21c2e8cbe1232d96e3d58dad3
|
369.6 kB | Preview Download |
Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 57625
- DOI
- 10.1002/anie.201501663
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20150519-065100064
- URL
- http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/anie.201501663/suppinfo
- NASA/JPL/Caltech
- S40AC1/42.14.101.07
- JPL
- NASA Postdoctoral Program
- FIS2013-48444-C2-2-P
- Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovaciόn (MCINN)
- Created
-
2015-05-19Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
-
2021-11-02Created from EPrint's last_modified field