But during their experiments, published in Nature Geoscience this week, the scientists found that the nodules were already carrying a very high electric charge. They were acting like natural rock batteries. They were loaded with enough electricity, in fact, to cause seawater to split into hydrogen and oxygen in a process called seawater electrolysis.
Just 1.5 volts - the same voltage as a typical AA battery - is enough to split seawater. Sweetman and his team recorded voltages of up to 0.95 volts on the surface of single nodules. When multiple nodules clustered together, the voltage was much higher, just like when batteries are connected in series.
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