Angewandte Chemie - International Edition
Angewandte Chemie - International Edition
5 years ago

Spontaneous and Widespread Electricity Generation in Natural Deep-Sea Hydrothermal Fields

Spontaneous and Widespread Electricity Generation in Natural Deep-Sea Hydrothermal Fields
Hidenori Kumagai, Ryuhei Nakamura, Takafumi Kasaya, Ken Takai, Masahiro Yamamoto, Katsuhiko Suzuki
Deep-sea hydrothermal vents discharge abundant reductive energy into oxidative seawater. Herein, we demonstrated that in situ measurements of redox potentials on the surfaces of active hydrothermal mineral deposits were more negative than the surrounding seawater potential, driving electrical current generation. We also demonstrated that negative potentials in the surface of minerals were widespread in the hydrothermal fields, regardless of the proximity to hydrothermal fluid discharges. Lab experiments verified that the negative potential of the mineral surface was induced by a distant electron transfer from the hydrothermal fluid through the metallic and catalytic properties of minerals. These results indicate that electric current is spontaneously and widely generated in natural mineral deposits in deep-sea hydrothermal fields. Our discovery provides important insights into the microbial communities that are supported by extracellular electron transfer and the prebiotic chemical and metabolic evolution of the ocean hydrothermal systems. Sea is electric, can I be electric too? In situ deep-sea redox potential measurements over a wide area (approximately 150 m×150 m) of hydrothermal vents and laboratory experiments on the electrocatalysis of hydrothermal mineral deposits demonstrated the spontaneous and widespread electricity generation in natural deep-sea hydrothermal fields.

Publisher URL: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/resolve/doi

DOI: 10.1002/anie.201701768

You might also like
Discover & Discuss Important Research

Keeping up-to-date with research can feel impossible, with papers being published faster than you'll ever be able to read them. That's where Researcher comes in: we're simplifying discovery and making important discussions happen. With over 19,000 sources, including peer-reviewed journals, preprints, blogs, universities, podcasts and Live events across 10 research areas, you'll never miss what's important to you. It's like social media, but better. Oh, and we should mention - it's free.

  • Download from Google Play
  • Download from App Store
  • Download from AppInChina

Researcher displays publicly available abstracts and doesn’t host any full article content. If the content is open access, we will direct clicks from the abstracts to the publisher website and display the PDF copy on our platform. Clicks to view the full text will be directed to the publisher website, where only users with subscriptions or access through their institution are able to view the full article.