US man detained in Venezuelan post-vote crackdown

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) ? A 35-year-old filmmaker from California has been arrested by Venezuelan authorities who are accusing him of fomenting postelection violence on behalf of the U.S. government.

President Nicolas Maduro said Thursday that he personally ordered Timothy Tracy's arrest on suspicion of "creating violence in the cities of this country." Venezuela's interior minister said Tracy was working for U.S. intelligence, paying right-wing youth groups to hold violent demonstrations in order to destabilize the country after Maduro's narrow election win last week.

Friends and family of Tracy told The Associated Press that he had been in Venezuela since last year making a documentary about the country, which is bitterly divided politically as the socialist heirs of the late President Hugo Chavez struggle to maintain control of a country beset by economic and political turmoil

The Georgetown University English graduate was a story consultant on the 2009 documentary "American Harmony," about competitive barbershop quartet singing, and produced the recent Discovery Channel program "Under Siege," about terrorism and smuggling across the U.S./Canada border.

"They don't have CIA in custody. They don't have a journalist in custody. They have a kid with a camera," said Aengus James, a friend and associate of Tracy's in Hollywood, California, and director of "American Harmony." ''He does not really know what he's doing."

James described Tracy as "fearless" but also somewhat quixotic.

"This whole thing came about with him at a party in South Florida," he said. "He met this cute girl who says, 'If you really are a documentary filmmaker you'll come tell the story of what is happening in Venezuela,' and if you say something like that to Tim he goes, whether or not he knows a single person there or knows anything about the political situation or the consequences."

Tracy had been detained at least twice before by Venezuela's SEBIN intelligence police. The last time was five days before the April 14 presidential election when he was taking video of a pro-government rally in the port city of Puerto Cabello, said an associate who spoke on condition of anonymity because he did not want to endanger people inside Venezuela.

The U.S. Embassy in Caracas declined immediate comment, citing citizen privacy.

Prosecutors said Tracy was arrested Wednesday evening as he tried to fly out of Simon Bolivar International Airport outside the capital, Caracas.

Tracy's father Emmet, of Grosse Pointe Farms, Michigan, said that in his last email his son had asked for some airline miles so he could fly to the United States so they could be together for the father's 80th birthday.

The prosecution said he would be brought to a court hearing Thursday to be formally charged under Venezuela's anti-terrorism laws.

The police had been friendly to Tracy during the previous incidents, with some even agreeing to appear in his documentary, the filmmaker's father said. Emmet Tracy said, however, that the family had begun urging his son to leave the country in light of the volatile political situation.

"Frankly it's the kind of scenario that we were concerned about and kept telling him," Emmet Tracy said.

Tensions in the country have been rising since Maduro beat opposition candidate Henrique Capriles in the April 14 election by less than 2 percentage points. The government insists the opposition fomented violence directed at ruling party supporters and official buildings in the days after the election. The opposition is demanding an audit of the vote, which it says was stolen.

Venezuela's government has long accused the United States of trying to undermine it, moving closer to Cuba, Iran and Russia after a failed 2002 coup attempt against Chavez that the George W. Bush administration initially recognized.

Tracy is the first American in recent memory to be detained in Venezuela on politically related charges, however.

"I gave the order that they detain him immediately, hand him to prosecutors with the proof that there is because nobody can be destabilizing this country, whatever they believe, because they're on the side of the bourgeoisie, no," Maduro said.

James said Tracy's Spanish is passable but not great.

He said Tracy "literally has no political agenda. He is very sympathetic to all sides. He's telling stories about people and what their life is like there."

"He has been involved in telling stories that told that international component. But he certainly never worked for the government," said James.

"He's trying to tell a human story," said James. "My fear is that he's gone in deeper than he should have."

__

Bajak contributed from Lima, Peru.

__

Frank Bajak on Twitter: http://twitter.com/fbajak

Michael Weissenstein on Twitter: http://twitter.com/mweissenstein

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/us-man-detained-venezuelan-post-vote-crackdown-202455776.html

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Archos to Release Three 'Pure Android' Prepaid Smartphones

Despite being ubiquitous, "Android" can be awfully hard to find. Many smartphones and tablets that use Google's open-source Android operating system, such as the Kindle Fire and Samsung's latest phones, barely mention this fact in a footnote.

Android phones often work very differently from each other, such as with the Windows Phone-style home screen on the HTC One. And most come with preinstalled "crapware," put there by the manufacturer or the wireless carrier, which can't be removed and might do things you don't want it to do.

Archos, formerly best known for its Android media player tablets, is making a series of smartphones which goes against that trend.

Carbon and platinum

According to the press release and device comparisons on Android Police, Archos' new smartphones include the 35 Carbon ("May be good for a child's first smartphone"), the 50 Platinum ("actually pretty usable"), and the 53 Platinum ("the largest of the three"). The names indicate how high-quality they are, as well as their screen size; the 35 Carbon has a 3.5-inch screen, the same as the original iPhone, while the 53 Platinum has a 5.3-inch screen, larger than the Galaxy S 4's.

Not just prepaid, but SIM-free

Archos' Android smartphones will not be tied to any one wireless carrier, the way even the prepaid phones that you buy up front are. (In this respect, they'll be similar to unlocked phones like Google's Nexus 4.) They will also have two SIM card slots, so that you can switch between carriers without needing to pop the case open.

"Pure un-skinned Android OS"

The press release does mention that Archos' phones will include "ARCHOS Media Centre apps," but this is to be expected from a company that used to make media players. Since the "pure" Android experience is a selling point, though, any extra apps shouldn't be as invasive as the ones on (for instance) a Samsung device sold by Verizon.

What about the specs?

The 35 Carbon has entry-level hardware, with a 1 GHz processor and 512 MB of RAM. It only has 4 GB of storage, but has a microSD slot for a memory card. Surprisingly -- for a $99 smartphone -- it has a front-facing camera. But its rear-facing one has the same VGA resolution, which will make for fuzzy, low-res photos. It has a 320x480 screen, and runs Android 4.0 ("Ice Cream Sandwich").

And the Platinum smartphones?

The $200 50 Platinum has (as the name suggests) a 5-inch screen, plus a 1.2 GHz dual-core processor and 1 GB of RAM. The $250, 53 Platinum has the same internals, but a 5.3-inch "phablet"-sized screen.

Both have the same 4 GB of storage (plus microSD) that the 35 Carbon has, but have significantly better cameras. They also run Android 4.1.2 ("Jelly Bean"), a newer version with more features.

When will they be available?

The press release says they "will be available starting in Europe at the end of May." Since there's an American English web page up for each smartphone, a stateside release ought to follow.

Jared Spurbeck is an open-source software enthusiast, who uses an Android phone and an Ubuntu laptop PC. He has been writing about technology and electronics since 2008.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/archos-release-three-pure-android-prepaid-smartphones-155800797.html

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NKorean soldiers put down arms to help plant crops

North Korean soldiers sit on the side of a road in south of Kaesong, North Korea near the demilitarized zone which separates the two Koreas on Wednesday, April 24, 2013. For weeks, North Korea has threatened to attack the U.S. and South Korea for holding joint military drills and for supporting U.N. sanctions. Washington and Seoul said they've seen no evidence that Pyongyang is actually preparing for a major conflict, though South Korean defense officials said the North appears prepared to test-fire a medium-range missile. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)

North Korean soldiers sit on the side of a road in south of Kaesong, North Korea near the demilitarized zone which separates the two Koreas on Wednesday, April 24, 2013. For weeks, North Korea has threatened to attack the U.S. and South Korea for holding joint military drills and for supporting U.N. sanctions. Washington and Seoul said they've seen no evidence that Pyongyang is actually preparing for a major conflict, though South Korean defense officials said the North appears prepared to test-fire a medium-range missile. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)

North Korean Army Col. Kim Chang Jun, stands behind field binoculars on a hilltop overlooking the demilitarized zone which separates the two Koreas in south of Kaesong, North Korea, Wednesday, April 24, 2013. For weeks, North Korea has threatened to attack the U.S. and South Korea for holding joint military drills and for supporting U.N. sanctions. Washington and Seoul said they've seen no evidence that Pyongyang is actually preparing for a major conflict, though South Korean defense officials said the North appears prepared to test-fire a medium-range missile. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)

North Korean soldiers ride in the top of a military truck on a road in south of Kaesong, North Korea on Wednesday, April 24, 2013 near the demilitarized zone which separates the two Koreas. For weeks, North Korea has threatened to attack the U.S. and South Korea for holding joint military drills and for supporting U.N. sanctions. Washington and Seoul said they've seen no evidence that Pyongyang is actually preparing for a major conflict, though South Korean defense officials said the North appears prepared to test-fire a medium-range missile. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)

North Korean soldiers stand on steps overlooking the border village of Panmunjom, North Korea, which has separates the two Koreas since the Korean War, Wednesday, April 24, 2013. For weeks, North Korea has threatened to attack the U.S. and South Korea for holding joint military drills and for supporting U.N. sanctions. Washington and Seoul said they've seen no evidence that Pyongyang is actually preparing for a major conflict, though South Korean defense officials said the North appears prepared to test-fire a medium-range missile. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)

A North Korean boy on rollerblades is pulled by a woman on a bicycle on Wednesday, April 24, 2013 on a road south of Kaesong, North Korea, and north of the demilitarized zone which separates the two Koreas. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)

SASI-RI, North Korea (AP) ? The North Korean side of the Demilitarized Zone is a hive of activity ? not of fighting, but of farming.

Beyond the barbed wire, ruddy-faced North Korean soldiers put down their rifles Wednesday and stood shoulder to shoulder with farmers as they turned their focus to another battle: the spring planting.

As neighboring nations remain on guard for a missile launch or nuclear test that South Korean and U.S officials say could take place at any time, the focus north of the border is on planting rice, cabbage and soybeans. In hamlets all along the DMZ, soldiers were knee-deep in mud and water as they helped farmers with the spring planting.

Inside the DMZ, hundreds of North Korean soldiers marched in a line with backpacks. On a hilltop above them in North Hwanghae province, Col. Kim Chang Jun said they were being dispatched to farms ? but still prepared for war if need be.

"From the outside, it looks peaceful: farmers are out in the fields, children are going to school," he said. "But behind the scenes, they are getting ready for war. They're working until midnight but come morning, if the call comes, they'll be ready to go to battle."

To the west, inside the Joint Security Area that is the heart of the DMZ, a tense quiet hangs over the area that divides North from South. This is the spot that foreign tourists see, a stage where the observation decks, pavilions, pine trees, cherry blossoms and azaleas belie the tanks and traps hidden from view along the 2.5-mile-wide (4-kilometer) buffer zone.

South Korean soldiers stand with fists curled at their hips in a combat-ready mode borrowed from taekwondo. Across the way, a unit of North Korean soldiers goosesteps into position, rifles slung across their backs. Visitors on a tour bus from the South Korean side peer up at a North Korean building known as Panmungak.

Because of the tensions, tourists are not allowed inside the three blue conference halls straddling the border, North Korean Lt. Col. Nam Dong Ho said. Typically, they are allowed to go into the meeting rooms as soldiers from both Koreas stand guard.

"This is a place that the whole world is watching, so of course it seems quiet on the surface," said Nam, who guides tours to Panmungak. But he said the prospect of war is always on the minds of soldiers manning the world's most militarized border.

"Is there anyone in the world who doesn't worry about war?" he told the AP on Tuesday. "We don't want a war. But if the American imperialists provoke us unjustifiably, we will answer with a nuclear war."

Since early March, North Korea has steadily and dramatically ramped up the rhetoric warning of a nuclear war on the Korean Peninsula, though it has quieted in recent days.

Leader Kim Jong Un ordered soldiers in charge of North Korea's arsenal of missiles on standby and North Korean officers at the front line severed communications with the South Korean military.

North Korea takes issue with tightened U.N. sanctions punishing Pyongyang for carrying out a long-range rocket launch in December and conducting a nuclear test in February in violation of Security Council resolutions. Pyongyang also is incensed by joint U.S.-South Korean military drills taking place now south of the border, annual exercises that this year have included nuclear-capable bombers and fighter jets.

South Korean defense officials say the North has moved missiles to the east coast, including a medium-range missile believed to be designed to strike U.S. territory, but there has been no indication of when they might test-fire the weapon.

When asked about North Korea's plans to fire a missile, Lt. Col. Nam said he didn't know anything specific, adding with a chuckle, "That's a national secret, top secret among secrets.

"But we have made it clear: Our army is capable of striking any place on earth."

As diplomats in the region conferred about how to bring down the tension and rein in an increasingly belligerent Pyongyang, Nam and Col. Kim reiterated in separate interviews this week that North Koreans want peace. But they said North Korea will not give up its nuclear weapons, seen here as a necessary deterrence against the powerful "American imperialists."

"We want to live peacefully and happily, but we will not sit by for one second if we are provoked," said Kim, whose job involves telling tourists about a concrete wall that the North says the South built in the late 1970s just south of the DMZ. North Korea considers the structure an affront to the goal of reunification.

"If a (nuclear) war breaks out, the death and destruction would be heartbreaking," Kim said. "But we may have no other course but to defend ourselves if we are provoked."

It remains unclear how far North Korea's nuclear weapons program has progressed in the years since six-nation negotiations to provide aid in exchange for nuclear disarmament fell apart in 2009. After pledging to mothball its plutonium-processing plant in 2008, Pyongyang announced last month that it would restart the facilities and continue enriching uranium, which experts say would provide North Korea with a second way to make atomic bombs.

Last month, Kim Jong Un enshrined the pursuit of nuclear weapons, along with building the economy, as key goals for the nation.

Col. Kim, at the lookout point along the DMZ, called nuclear weapons "the lifeblood" of North Korea. "If we don't have nuclear weapons, we'll continue to be threatened by outside forces."

For the moment, however, the labor of many North Korean soldiers is turned to the land. Spring is arriving slowly this year in North Korea, pushing back the crucial planting season by a month. Impoverished North Korea struggles to feed its 24 million people, with the U.N. estimating that two-thirds of the population cope with chronic food shortages.

Farmers in Panmunjom-ri, the North Korean village inside the DMZ, were busy planting rice, cabbage, soybeans and radish in fields surrounded by barbed wire and anti-tank barriers.

Elsewhere, faces flushed and still in their uniforms, men and women soldiers waded into muddy paddies and bent down with fistfuls of spinach to plant.

Around them, red banners fluttered in the wind. One read, "At a breath," a phrase urging North Koreans to work hard. The other read, "Defend to the death."

___

Follow AP's bureau chief in Pyongyang at www.twitter/newsjean.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2013-04-24-NKorea-DMZ/id-c7f147c67a05463a88e68c1ca58c0f8f

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Chile arrests 4 accused of burning baby in rite

SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) ? Chilean police on Thursday arrested four people accused of burning a baby alive in a ritual because the leader of the sect believed that the end of the world was near and that the child was the antichrist.

The 3-day-old baby was taken to a hill in the town of Colliguay near the Chilean port of Valparaiso on Nov. 21 and was thrown into a bonfire. The baby's mother, 25-year-old Natalia Guerra, had allegedly approved the sacrifice and was among those arrested.

"The baby was naked. They strapped tape around her mouth to keep her from screaming. Then they placed her on a board. After calling on the spirits they threw her on the bonfire alive," said Miguel Ampuero, of the Police investigative Unit, Chile's equivalent of the FBI.

Authorities said the 12-member sect was formed in 2005 and was led by Ramon Gustavo Castillo Gaete, 36, who remains at large.

"Everyone in this sect was a professional," Ampuero said. "We have someone who was a veterinarian and who worked as a flight attendant, we have a filmmaker, a draftsman. Everyone has a university degree. "

Police said Castillo Gaete, the ringleader, was last seen traveling to Peru to buy ayahuasca, a hallucinogenic brew plant that he used to control the members of the rite.

__

Luis Andres Henao on Twitter: https://twitter.com/LuisAndresHenao

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/chile-arrests-4-accused-burning-baby-rite-000914259.html

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White House willing to consider budget flexibility

White House press secretary Jay Carney speaks during his daily news briefing at the White House in Washington, Wednesday, April, 24, 2013. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

White House press secretary Jay Carney speaks during his daily news briefing at the White House in Washington, Wednesday, April, 24, 2013. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

WASHINGTON (AP) ? The White House now says it's willing to consider legislation that would give the administration the budget-cutting flexibility to avoid furloughs of air traffic controllers.

Those furloughs could result in widespread air traffic delays.

White House spokesman Jay Carney says that if Congress wants to address the effect of automatic spending cuts on the Federal Aviation Administration, "we would be open to looking at that."

But he says that would be a "Band-Aid measure" that would not address other automatic cuts that kicked in March 1.

Back in February, when those cuts were approaching, the White House threatened to veto legislation that would give Obama greater budget-cutting flexibility.

At the time, the White House said it couldn't make dramatic cuts without affecting national security or hurting the economy.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2013-04-24-US-Obama-FAA/id-a65ee33630364220911d4da46c3750f4

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China sends largest fleet yet to disputed islands

China sent a fleet of patrol ships today to the sea area it disputes with Japan, following a controversial visit by Japanese officials to a war shrine. The latest moves are seen as a setback for a diplomatic resolution.

By Ralph Jennings,?Correspondent / April 23, 2013

Chinese surveillance ships sail in formation in waters claimed by Japan near disputed islands called Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China in the East China Sea Tuesday.

Kyodo News/AP

Enlarge

Spats between Asia?s two most powerful nations, China and Japan, have grown uncomfortably routine since Tokyo nationalized a group of disputed islands in September. On Tuesday tensions reached a new and potentially worrisome high.

Skip to next paragraph Ralph Jennings

Taiwan Correspondent

Ralph Jennings has covered news in China, Taiwan and Southeast Asia for the past 14 years. He lives in Taipei and holds a degree in mass communication from the University of California in Berkeley.?

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China sent eight surveillance vessels into Japanese territorial waters, apparently to track a flotilla of Japanese activists who had gone to look at the contested area. China?s presence ? an effort to exercise authority in the region ? is its largest since Japan nationalized the uninhabited islets, Kyodo News reported.

China?s use of ships in disputed waters isn?t expected to cause a war, but it raises the specter of a miscalculation at sea that could in turn create a new diplomatic row, set off more protests in Chinese cities, and strike another blow at Japanese business caught in the crossfire. Hopes of polite negotiations are also off the map for now.

"Only when Japan faces up to its aggressive past can it embrace the future and develop friendly relations with its Asian neighbors," Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told a news conference on Monday.

As if the 80 pro-Tokyo activists weren?t enough to upset Beijing, that same day 168 Japanese lawmakers visited a Shinto shrine that?s reviled elsewhere in Asia for memorializing World War II heroes. Japan occupied parts of China from 1931 to 1945. Three cabinet ministers had already visited Yasukuni Shrine over the weekend, causing calculated reaction.

In protest, a high-level Chinese military official bailed on a trip this week to Japan as the foreign ministry lashed out.?

And China?s surveillance vessels probably weren?t loaded with olive branches. The Communist country has increasingly jousted?with Japan since around 2005 as it rose to become the world?s second largest economy.

?Such an intrusion [in the East China Sea] was certainly not undertaken spontaneously, but would have been planned and coordinated some time in advance for execution as soon as an opportunity presented itself,? says Scott Harold, associate political scientist with US-based think tank the RAND Corporation.

Japan controls the disputed islets, which it calls the Senkakus, despite 40 years of competing claims from China and a wave of destructive anti-Japanese street protests in Chinese cities last year. China criticizes the Shinto shrine visits because a memorial at the venue also honors 14 major war criminals.

The two sides are also disputing rights to an undersea natural gas field, while China periodically accuses Japan of not apologizing for the war of the 1940s. Japan says it has apologized.?

China and Japan, as the world?s No. 2 and No. 3 economies, also mean a lot to each other trade wise. The number of Japanese subsidiaries in China has grown eight times since the 1990s, and they sold $147 billion worth of goods to the country in the 2011 fiscal year.

Will the two keep meeting, along with South Korea, to discuss a three-way trade agreement? After momentum last month, the latest raises concern that this puts progress on ice.

?Both sides need to be more flexible,? suggests Ralph Cossa, president with US think tank Pacific Forum Center for Strategic and International Studies. ?Japan needs to acknowledge that the territory is in dispute, at least from a Chinese perspective, and the Chinese need to acknowledge that they are under Japan?s administrative control and that a military solution is unacceptable.?

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/csmonitor/globalnews/~3/JNlHK-p_sik/China-sends-largest-fleet-yet-to-disputed-islands

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Recipe for low-cost, biomass-derived catalyst for hydrogen production

Apr. 24, 2013 ? In a paper to be published in an upcoming issue of Energy & Environmental Science, researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory describe details of a low-cost, stable, effective catalyst that could replace costly platinum in the production of hydrogen. The catalyst, made from renewable soybeans and abundant molybdenum metal, produces hydrogen in an environmentally friendly, cost-effective manner, potentially increasing the use of this clean energy source.

The research has already garnered widespread recognition for Shilpa and Shweta Iyer, twin-sister high school students who contributed to the research as part of an internship under the guidance of Brookhaven chemist Wei-Fu Chen, supported by projects led by James Muckerman, Etsuko Fujita, and Kotaro Sasaki.

"This paper reports the 'hard science' from what started as the Iyer twins' research project and has resulted in the best-performing, non-noble-metal-containing hydrogen evolution catalyst yet known -- even better than bulk platinum metal," Muckerman said.

The project branches off from the Brookhaven group's research into using sunlight to develop alternative fuels. Their ultimate goal is to find ways to use solar energy -- either directly or via electricity generated by solar cells -- to convert the end products of hydrocarbon combustion, water and carbon dioxide, back into a carbon-based fuel. Dubbed "artificial photosynthesis," this process mimics how plants convert those same ingredients to energy in the form of sugars. One key step is splitting water, or water electrolysis.

"By splitting liquid water (H₂O) into hydrogen and oxygen, the hydrogen can be regenerated as a gas (H₂) and used directly as fuel," Sasaki explained. "We sought to fabricate a commercially viable catalyst from earth-abundant materials for application in water electrolysis, and the outcome is indeed superb."

." ..the best-performing, non-noble-metal-containing hydrogen evolution catalyst yet known..."

This form of hydrogen production could help the scientists achieve their ultimate goal.

"A very promising route to making a carbon-containing fuel is to hydrogenate carbon dioxide (or carbon monoxide) using solar-produced hydrogen," said Fujita, who leads the artificial photosynthesis group in the Brookhaven Chemistry Department.

But with platinum as the main ingredient in the most effective water-splitting catalysts, the process is currently too costly to be economically viable.

Comsewogue High School students Shweta and Shilpa Iyer entered the lab as the search for a cost-effective replacement was on.

The Brookhaven team had already identified some promising leads with experiments demonstrating the potential effectiveness of low-cost molybdenum paired with carbon, as well as the use of nitrogen to confer some resistance to the corrosive, acidic environment required in proton exchange membrane water electrolysis cells. But these two approaches had not yet been tried together.

The students set out to identify plentiful and inexpensive sources of carbon and nitrogen, and test ways to combine them with a molybdenum salt.

"The students became excited about using familiar materials from their everyday lives to meet a real-world energy challenge," Chen recounted. The team tested a wide variety of sources of biomass -- leaves, stems, flowers, seeds, and legumes -- with particular interest in those with high protein content because the amino acids that make up proteins are a rich source of nitrogen. High-protein soybeans turned out to be the best.

To make the catalyst the team ground the soybeans into a powder, mixed the powder with ammonium molybdate in water, then dried and heated the samples in the presence of inert argon gas. "A subsequent high temperature treatment (carburization) induced a reaction between molybdenum and the carbon and nitrogen components of the soybeans to produce molybdenum carbides and molybdenum nitrides," Chen explained. "The process is simple, economical, and environmentally friendly."

Electrochemical tests of the separate ingredients showed that molybdenum carbide is effective for converting H₂O to H₂, but not stable in acidic solution, while molybdenum nitride is corrosion-resistant but not efficient for hydrogen production. A nanostructured hybrid of these two materials, however, remained active and stable even after 500 hours of testing in a highly acidic environment.

"We attribute the high activity of the molybdenum-soy catalyst (MoSoy) to the synergistic effect between the molybdenum-carbide phase and the molybdenum-nitride phase in the composite material," Chen said.

Structural and chemical studies of the new catalyst conducted at Brookhaven's National Synchrotron Light Source (NSLS) and the Center for Functional Nanomaterials (CFN) are also reported in the paper, and provide further details underlying the high performance of this new catalyst.

"The presence of nitrogen and carbon atoms in the vicinity of the catalytic molybdenum center facilitates the production of hydrogen from water," Muckerman said.

The scientists also tested the MoSoy catalyst anchored on sheets of graphene -- an approach that has proven effective for enhancing catalyst performance in electrochemical devices such as batteries, supercapacitors, fuel cells, and water electrolyzers. Using a high-resolution transmission microscope in Brookhven's Condensed Matter Physics and Materials Science Department, the scientists were able to observe the anchored MoSoy nanocrystals on 2D graphene sheets.

The graphene-anchored MoSoy catalyst surpassed the performance of pure platinum metal. Though not quite as active as commercially available platinum catalysts, the high performance of graphene-anchored MoSoy was extremely encouraging to the scientific team.

"The direct growth of anchored MoSoy nanocrystals on graphene sheets may enhance the formation of strongly coupled hybrid materials with intimate, seamless electron transfer pathways, thus accelerating the electron transfer rate for the chemical desorption of hydrogen from the catalyst, further reducing the energy required for the reaction to take place," Sasaki said.

The scientists are conducting additional studies to gain a deeper understanding of the nature of the interaction at the catalyst-graphene interface, and exploring ways to further improve its performance.

In the paper, the authors -- including the two high-school students -- conclude: "This study unambiguously provides evidence that a cheap and earth-abundant transition metal such as molybdenum can be turned into an active catalyst by the controlled solid-state reaction with soybeans?The preparation of the MoSoy catalyst is simple and can be easily scaled up. Its long-term durability and ultra-low capital cost satisfy the prerequisites for its application in the construction of large-scale devices. These findings thus open up new prospects for combining inexpensive biomass and transition metals?to produce catalysts for electro-catalytic reactions."

Additional collaborators in this research were Chiu-Hui Wang and Yimei Zhu of Brookhaven Lab.

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Story Source:

The above story is reprinted from materials provided by DOE/Brookhaven National Laboratory.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

---

Journal Reference:

1. Wei-Fu Chen, Shilpa Iyer, Shweta Iyer, Kotaro Sasaki, Chiu-Hui Wang, Yimei Zhu, James T. Muckerman, Etsuko Fujita. Biomass-Derived Electrocatalytic Composites for Hydrogen Evolution. Energy & Environmental Science, 2013; DOI: 10.1039/C3EE40596F

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/~3/z7rfSFKmS_U/130424103132.htm

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