Gamma Radiation and Electrolysis

[Highlight]

This is my second attempt on this topic. [Inappropriate comment removed by the Mentors] Somebody around here told me that there are thousands of scientists around the world trying to figure out a way in which to make electrolysis more efficient. Which could be true. So maybe adding what the title of this thread suggests has already been thought of. But I will say it anyway.

Perhaps I read it wrong, but I was reading that exposing water to gamma radiation won't make the water radioactive. I was also reading that exposing water to gamma radiation can break some of the H20 molecules into various compounds. It seems to me that in breaking the H20 bond using gamma radiation in combination with regular DC electrolysis should make the DC electrolysis much more efficient in producing hydrogen and oxygen. Seeing how much of the breaking of the H20 molecular bond will already be getting done by the gamma radiation. And when it comes to producing gamma radiation, there is more than enough nuclear waste around to produce those gamma rays.

So, what do you think of this approach? Has it already been tried? Were some of the things I said in error? Please let me know.

 

[renormalize]

It seems to me that in breaking the H20 bond using gamma radiation in combination with regular DC electrolysis should make the DC electrolysis much more efficient in producing hydrogen and oxygen. Seeing how much of the breaking of the H20 molecular bond will already be getting done by the gamma radiation. And when it comes to producing gamma radiation, there is more than enough nuclear waste around to produce those gamma rays.
So, what do you think of this approach? Has it already been tried? Were some of the things I said in error? Please let me know.

I don't know if your idea has "already been tried", but it certainly has already been studied. Here is a very recent reference: Nuclear Waste–Powered Hydrogen: Tenfold Boost Using Radiation-Enhanced Electrolysis.
(By the way, this took me about a minute to find by searching with Google. Can't you do us the courtesy of first conducting your own search, so that you may then post better informed questions here?)

 

[Mayhem]

First of all it's H₂O, not H20. To chemists, using 0 in place of O is like using n in place of π is to physicists. Anyway.

Gamma radiation isn't free either. Would there be an inherent advantage to spending energy to generate gamma radiation over just using that energy directly to drive an electrolyzer?

If you want to use a gamma emitting isotope, you have to ask if it is worth producing for this purpose and whether or not it can be scaled to industrially relevant levels.

Water electrolysis is an infamously elegant idea for producing hydrogen but it is simply not economically viable as of now.