From the University of Southern California a parallel for Alfred Nobel’s design of a stable substrate for dynamite (which at the time used unstable nitro-glycerin). This solves the collision problem for automobile mounted fuel cells.
Breakthrough in hydrogen fuel cells
USC chemists develop way to safely store, extract hydrogen
A team of USC scientists has developed a robust, efficient method of using hydrogen as a fuel source.
Hydrogen makes a great fuel because of it can easily be converted to electricity in a fuel cell and because it is carbon free. The downside of hydrogen is that, because it is a gas, it can only be stored in high pressure or cryogenic tanks.
In a vehicle with a tank full of hydrogen, “if you got into a wreck, you’d have a problem,” said Travis Williams, assistant professor of chemistry at the USC Dornsife College.
A possible solution is to store hydrogen in a safe chemical form. Earlier this year, Williams and his team figured out a way to release hydrogen from an innocuous chemical material — a nitrogen-boron complex, ammonia borane — that can be stored as a stable solid.
Now the team has developed a catalyst system that releases enough hydrogen from its storage in ammonia borane to make it usable as a fuel source. Moreover, the system is air-stable and re-usable, unlike other systems for hydrogen storage on boron and metal hydrides.
The research was published this month in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.
“Ours is the first game in town for reusable, air stabile ammonia borane dehydrogenation,” Williams said, adding that the USC Stevens Institute is in the process of patenting the system.
The system is sufficiently lightweight and efficient to have potential fuel applications ranging from motor-driven cycles to small aircraft, he said.
The research was funded by the Hydrocarbon Research Foundation and the National Science Foundation.
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$1000 bet anyone? Well, no way to consumate it. But if I could, I’d do it.
Pure poppycock. Love these SCIENCE types. NOT ENGINEERS I assure you. No mention of power density. Sound the BUZZER. You lose. Unlikely to match gasoline. Go back to “Go” and DO NOT collect $1000.
Max
What are the stack rebuild costs and intervals?
These questions will haunt the fuel cell industry until they finally (some day), after 40 years, come up with something that dosen’t last half as long or cost 5x what a normal engine costs.
One also has to look at how they respond long term to running in polluted cities, where some cell designs that need outside air, typically unfiltered, which contains contaminants, can come in and poison their stacks.
Drive by a dump or wastewater plant?
Then it gets worse as the precious metal based catalysts tarnish/poison, requiring a costly rebuild.
Hydrogen is the wave of the future. And always will be.
Jason Joice M.D. says:
August 30, 2011 at 2:30 pm
> So someone explain to me how hydrogen is so much more dangerous that a gas tank full of gasoline or a CNG car’s tank full of methane??
On just the hydrogen vs methane question. First, instead of just cars, note this applies to natural gas as used in domestic and industrial settings. (Natural gas is 90% methane.)
According to the MSDS for H2 at http://www.airgas.com/documents/pdf/001026.pdf , Hydrogen self-ignites at temperatures from 399.85 to 573.75°C (751.7 to 1064.8°F), and flammable within the limits of 4% to 75%.
According to the MSDS for natural gas at http://www.airgas.com/documents/pdf/001033.pdf , methan self ignites at 539.85°C (1003.7°F), and flammable within the limits of 5% to 15%.
http://ccinfoweb.ccohs.ca/help/msds/msdstermse.html says :
So, hydrogen can ignite at lower temperatures than methane and can explode at lower concentrations – or much higher – than methane. Guess that’s why it’s so easy to collect enough hydrogen in a container to explode it.
Do not, do not, do not treat hydrogen as a substitute for natural gas, it’s much more dangerous.
Jim Bob said:
“Looking at a few quick numbers, there are around 2.5 kW of energy in a US gallon of gasoline.”
A kW is a unit of power, not energy. The energy unit is KW-Hr, and there are about 40 of these in a gallon of gasoline (without ethanol)
JimBob says:
August 30, 2011 at 4:26 pm
kW is power – like what a car puts out while cruising a some speed, or energy/second. You probably want kWh, and Wikipedia says gasoline has 36.6 kWh/US gal. The three place accuracy is pushing things, but close enough for Wikipedia and us.
Then you need to compare electrolysis efficiency and fuel cell efficiency and compare that to a car engine’s efficiency. I think the killer may be the electrolysis efficiency because otherwise people would us wind turbines to generate hydrogen.
They could pump the H2 into a pipeline – no need for fancy power controls – and the pipeline can go to tanks – easy storage. That’s not happening, I assume because the energy budget does work out well.
I remember watch a TV show (long ago) where they took a hydrogen tank and a gasoline tank and fired a rile shot at each. The gasoline gave a big explosion, the hydrogen burned like a propane torch as it came out of the hole. Of course the show was about hydrogen possibly replacing gasoline, so maybe the experiment was staged to make their point. This was long before cAGW became a cause-celebre.
There are a lot of problems with hydrogen, one only briefly mentioned is that cities might get awfully humid with all of the water vapor released into the air, but I don’t think hydrogen is any more explosive than gasoline, or any other high-energy-density electrical or chemical storage mechanism.
Codetech says- “We could also have hydrogen bound with carbon at the molecular level, for example:
C8H18”
🙂
C8H18 is a great solution for storing hydrogen, and when disassembled, additional energy is released from breaking the C-C bonds. Its time to pitch this to some green-tech VC firms for seed funding.
I made a bumper sticker for my Ford Explorer with a picture of the blue Earth, and a dinosaur grazing under a tree. There are molecular formulas for the main constituents of gasoline sprinkled faintly in the background.
It says-
“THIS VEHICLE RUNS ON HYDROGEN-loaded nanorods”
It’s a myth that CNG (or as we call it LNG) is as dangerous as petrol in an accident.
Here in Perth, Western Australia, the majority of vehicles on the road are LNG powered. Every service station has one or more LNG self service pumps.
While petrol vehicle and service station fires are a regular occurence, I can only recall one LNG vehicle fire, and that was someone who had done the conversion himself at home.
LNG is generally only a problem if it vents into an enclose space which almost never happens with a vehicle accident.
Otherwise, interesting study by the Western Australian government comparing diesel, LNG/CNG and fuel cell vehicles.
Bottom line is that hydrogen fuel cell vehicles require twice as much energy as diesel vehicles.
CNG/LNG vehicles require 40% more energy than diesel, but LNG is locally produced here and much cheaper than diesel fuel.
http://www.transport.wa.gov.au/ACT_P_alt_LCAreport.pdf
Tom_R says:
August 30, 2011 at 6:00 pm
> I remember watch a TV show (long ago) where they took a hydrogen tank and a gasoline tank and fired a rile shot at each. The gasoline gave a big explosion, the hydrogen burned like a propane torch as it came out of the hole. Of course the show was about hydrogen possibly replacing gasoline, so maybe the experiment was staged to make their point. This was long before cAGW became a cause-celebre.
This sounds like the Billings demonstration I mentioned earlier. The reason the tank didn’t explode was because he was using hydrogen pellets and not straight hydrogen.
And, don’t forget all the methane that leaks into the atmosphere from fracking the natural gas out of the ground, with which to make the H2. And, don’t forget the peer reviewed studies which have the AGW footprint of natural gas higher than that of coal as a result of this methane leakage.
Why didn’t the Hindenburg explode? It burned rapidly but it didn’t really explode.
mike g
“studies” as in plural?
The only one I know of is by an activist Cornell professor who is on record as wanting to ban hydrofracturing in New York State. I wouldn’t be surprised to see him needing James Hansen’s bail bondsman some day.
He’s had his head handed to him.
http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2011/08/new_shale_study_refutes_cornel.html
As I recall from basic high school chemistry, the thing that makes hydrogen such a great fuel (the amount of energy released when it reacts with something) is exactly the same as what makes it a lousy (inefficient) fuel. Hydrogen rarely exists by itself. In order to get plain hydrogen, you have to overcome the strength of the molecular bond it has with whatever it has combined with. That requires expending power. If your intention is to get hydrogen out of water, then burn it “cleanly,” producing water, then you have a zero-sum system (assuming you are actually able to capture all of the released energy, which is unlikely). You might as well just use the power you used to seperate the hydrogen for your end purpose instead. The most efficient method would be solar-powered electrolysis, but then you don’t have that power available for something else. To make matters worse, in order to get the hydrogen out of ammonia-borane, you have to heat it, reducing the efficiency even further.
“So, unless someone can figure out a clean way to produce hydrogen”
Truck it in from the sun.
The so called greening of our economy is the biggest hoax in human history pushed by useless wind and solar power and thousands of technological and scientific breakthroughs that fail to materialize
The sad part of the story besides the fact that these projects burn incredible amounts of public money and hike energy bills is the fact that the masses think a Green economy is realistic and good for the environment. We know the opposite is the case.
Here is the latest breakthrough:
Frustrated scientists turn to panda poop in search of biofuels…
http://denver.cbslocal.com/2011/08/30/panda-poop-could-by-key-to-producing-biofuels/
Last I heard, crashes were not any problem, given the way the fuel tanks would rupture in any collision. Do these blokes know about that? Storing hydrogen as a solid, however, could be very
useful, as shipping hydrogen is a real pain. But I wonder how the energy densities work out?
Yes, H2 is for storage of energy. Duh, it takes energy to make H2. And it takes more energy to make it that it stores. Duh again. If you want an alternative fuel, or battery, H2 is a good choice, but obviously, you need to produce it from an energy source where you have abundance and an ability to produce H2 cheaper than petroleum. Think nuclear energy.
1 kg of H2 is the equivalent of 1 gal of gasoline. But 1 kg of H2 takes up 4 gal volume. However, you save in the mass you must move. The good news is the other half of your battery is the O2 in the air, available everywhere. Forget pressurized H2 at RT.
Think of a complete production and delivery system. You make H2 from wastewater using nuclear energy. Liquify. Deliver LH2 through a pipe. In this pipe, you also have a wire. LH2 at 20K is able to make Al a near superconductor. So now you can deliver not only LH2, but also e- with far less loss than high tension wires (10 to 30% loss depending on distance and other factors). When the LH2 is used in a fuel cell, it might be possible to collect the H2O produced in a reaction with O2. When the LH2 needs to be replaced, the H2O can be collected and fed to a domestic water supply. The water is used and treated wastewater goes back to the top.
The water recycling part is obviously optional, since the water cycle works very effectively (rain). However using treated wastewater as a source of H2 is a good idea since discharging wastewater is getting more difficult. It would be nice to make a product out of something that is currently a problem.
H2 will not take off until it becomes economical compared to petroleum. For now, NG is a better choice. The last price for H2 I heard was $8 / kg, so unless gasoline gets above $8 / gal, H2 will not be a viable alternative. I guess the other way to go is make production of H2 cheaper. Nuclear energy might make that possible.
Note electric cars are also a stupid choice now compared to gasoline. Especially if you are worried about CO2 (the CO2 is emitted at the power plant, and energy conversion losses at every step amplify the CO2 released per mile driven). Only nuclear power supplying energy to electric cars makes any sense at all. Renewables cannot deliver the energy needed to replace gasoline. They don’t scale well at all.
Also, consider ethanol contains only about 2/3 the energy per gallon compared to gasoline. And corn ethanol uses more petroleum to make than it replaces.
At some point we are going to grow up and realize carbon is not our enemy. The carbon-hydrogen bond is the marker of life – it is everywhere. Look in a book on Biochemistry. The main elements are C,H,O,N. – but certainly not all.
It sounds like this technology is aimed at increasing storage capacity and safety of hydrogen. Boron structures can have a precise geometry, and there may be some other atoms in the ligands to modify the structure to be better for hydride containment. .
Related work has been done on metal-organic structures which have carefully controlled atomic structures. They can be used for storage, catalysis and many other applications. One example was a system that increased natural gas storage in a tank by 4X, extending the range of trucks and buses to double that of gasoline/ethanol blends. It is likely that a Nobel prize will be awarded to the inventor of the metal/organic hybrids. They are very versatile and can use the metal atomic structure to attach to the organics to create cages. By changing electric field, pH or other chemistry, the cages can be opened or closed. The cages can have strong or weak interactions with captured materials, and precisely-controlled geometry keeps the materials inside the structure until the “switch:” is operated.
I have no idea about the practicality of the technology here. Much of this work will take some time to come to fruition.
Those who are interested could read into ZIFs and MOFFs and go from there.
PBS ran a documentary on alternate fuels for cars. they featured a hydrogen powered Mercedes Benz. It was shown going along the road dribbling that H2O it produces on the pavement. Hello, does it ever get below 0C in the German winters? So we’ll have to have a catch tank and haul it around. But how will we get rid of the stuff. Surely some Green zealot group will convince the media that it contains TOXINS!
And, I’ve been told that compressed hydrogen is vigorously reactive with most metals. Reading to learn what I was doing when I was modifying cars introduced me to the term: hydrogen embrittlement. I wonder if those problems are inexpensively addressed?
And the key question on electric cars is: How many miles to the pound of coal?
While it is true that “Hydrogen makes a great fuel because of it can easily be converted to electricity in a fuel cell and because it is carbon free.” The suggestion that being carbon free is advantageous is misleading. The effluent from a hydrogen fuel cell is water vapor. When this water vapor condenses it releases specific heat which will cause the atmosphere to warm for one cycle. In this regard, using hydrogen has the same impact on the atmosphere as the water vapor that is released when fossil fuels are burned and when water from fossil (no or slow recharge) aquifers is produced. Specific heat is released when the water vapor condenses to liquid water and the kinetic energy is converted to potential energy.
Although the new water vapor is not persistent in nature, continuous release causes continuous warming of the atmosphere and the entire amount of new water introduced into the atmosphere causes the sea level to rise.
JFD
Re: CodeTech C8H18.
Very well stated, CodeTech. If Octane didn’t naturally exist, we’d have to invent it.
Your piece reminds me of an essay in 1973’s “A Random Walk in Science” called:
On the feasibility of coal-driven power stations by O. R. FRISCH
Here is a URL that reprints it.
http://www.theclimatescam.se/2010/10/20/kolkraft-en-mojlig-energikalla/ Enjoy!
I particulary love these peices: from the year MMMMCMLV
I think you, and a few others, miss the point.
As a example: We could build small nuclear reactors to fit in large cars… OR we can build a reactor, to split H2O into H2 and O2, and fuel our cars with nuclear powered H2. The cost of uranium/thorium is insignificant, efficiencies, while desirable, not so important .
Another example: We can build small coal fired boiler, to fit in a large car… OR we can build a coal fueled boiler to split H2O into H2 to fuel our cars with coal powered H2. The fact that this is inefficient is immaterial as we are now driving our vehicles on coal. When oil peaks coal energy may also have to power transport.
As I said, these alternatives are valid, only as solutions to peak oil, if and when it arrives. Rising oil prices will make nuclear powered H2 viable. Economics will ensure, just in time, hydrogen replacement of transport fuels. And yes, it will necessitate, the construction of yet another magnitude of power stations. They may not employ present technology, nor look like anything, we are familiar with today. After all, we are talking about the future! GK
Meh.