Why Don’t We Just Make Water Chemically In A Lab?

Making water by combining hydrogen and oxygen is technically possible but extremely dangerous. The reaction releases a tremendous amount of energy. Since hydrogen is highly flammable and oxygen supports combustion, mixing them in large quantities can result in a deadly explosion -- as the 1937 Hindenburg disaster demonstrated.

It is a well-known fact that water is scarce -- not just any water, but the freshwater we can drink. Although water covers about 71% of Earth's surface, roughly 97% of it is held by oceans and is saline, i.e., undrinkable. The remaining 3% is mostly locked in glaciers and ice caps. Indeed, accessible freshwater is scarce.

So why can’t we just make water chemically in laboratories? We know the formula, right? We know that it is formed by the combination of hydrogen and oxygen. So why don’t we do it already?

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The Problem With Manufacturing Water

It is not as easy as it appears to be. Combination of hydrogen and oxygen atoms is accompanied by release of tremendous amount of energy.

Hydrogen, being the simplest element in the world, consists of only 1 electron in its orbit. Oxygen on the other hand, has 6 electrons in its outermost orbit, 2 short of a completely filled outermost shell. There is an energy barrier which has to be overcome to bring these two elements together.

Also hydrogen is a highly flammable gas and oxygen supports combustion, so what happens when they come together, that too in large quantities? Take a guess.

This chemical reaction, when occurs, produces a large amount of energy, which may amount to a full scale, deadly explosion. This is exactly what happened in the Hindenburg Disaster in 1937.

The Hindenburg disaster took place on May 6, 1937, when the German passenger airship LZ 129 Hindenburg caught fire and was destroyed during its attempt to dock at Lakehurst Naval Air Station in New Jersey. Investigations concluded that hydrogen leaking from a damaged gas cell mixed with the surrounding air, and an electrostatic spark -- likely caused by a difference in electric potential between the airship and the atmosphere -- ignited the hydrogen-air mixture. The resulting fire consumed the airship in roughly 34 seconds, killing 35 of the 97 people on board and one ground crew member.

But yes, as a byproduct of the hydrogen combustion, water was indeed created.

Any Solution?

In order to manufacture water to cater to the needs of such a large population on the planet, the laboratories and the facilities required to contain such great and spontaneous emission of energy would be too expensive to be practically and economically viable.

But yes, there is an alternative.

One way to ‘make’ water would be to extract the water that is already present in the air as water-vapor. Using sheets of cooled metal, the air temperature can be rapidly dropped, allowing the water vapour to condense.

The Whisson Windmill does just that. It uses refrigerant-cooled blades to lower the air temperature and condense moisture from the atmosphere. Depending on its size and wind conditions, it can reportedly produce thousands of litres of water per day at a very low cost and with almost no impact on the environment. On a much smaller scale, portable atmospheric water generators used in disaster-struck areas can draw air through a cooled chamber, producing hundreds of litres per day.

It is pretty much evident that water is not that easy to make. So our best bet is to conserve the water that we already have access to.