This part of the PR is important:
"We are quite excited that recent results point to the possibility of a very low cost, large scale commercial manufacturing process," said Professor Syed Mubeen, principal researcher at UOI. "The particles we created did not have enough voltage to split water at a commercially acceptable level. However, by adding a small amount of external voltage, we were able to observe a very high hydrogen production rate. This implies that the junctions themselves are quite efficient, but require just a bit more voltage. Therefore, our next step is to try different combinations of inexpensive materials to get more intrinsic photo voltages."
A little external voltage... is this perhaps the reason Dr. Yat Li has joined? Electrogenic bacteria in wastewater could provide the this kind of voltage. Given, I think this is only one application and other applications would require a different version of the PEC. Another application this could be used on is as a coating on traditional electrolyzer plates in effort to make them more efficient. Instead of coating a solar cell, coat the plate.
I am happy to hear that their tech produces a very high production rate, and that they kept on with their aqueous manufacturing technique as these things provide a wide range of options going forward.
That said I still want a voltage update. Average time for update is 5 months now - and its been 5 months since the last one.
Quick Stats (please, correct me if you see some thing wrong):
The time between updates were: 0.2, 0.75, 1.0 ,1.1 ,1.2 ,1.25 [V] at 5,3,3,3,10 [months] respectively. Note the 0.2V was not a PR but the Tue, Aug., 20th 2013 PR mentioned 8 months prior was 0.2V.
PR's about patents are 10 months apart on average. Last one was in March.
There are a few other stats that don't make a trend yet and that is new technological advances and appointments of new members.
There has been a lot of new appointments recently, and with the addition of Iowa and this news, and that the PR's are written better (more info and clear) all point in the right direction, IMHO.
As I don't foresee myself gaining my financial independence today, I bid you good day.... off to work.
