Hydrogen Fuel Cells Running On Sunflower Oil

tigersaw writes "You've heard about Biodiesel , Greasecars, and Fuel Cells for a while now. At yesterday's meeting of the American Chemical Society, researchers from the University of Leeds in England described a novel approach that combines these ideas in a fuel cell device that employs steam and two separate catalyts to generate hydrogen using sunflower oil. Experimental results show a hydrogen yield of 90 percent, versus 70 percent in other hydrogen fuel cell technologies. 'The sunflower oil used is the same type found on grocery shelves. "We would happily toss our salad with it," says the researcher, who adds that the process can also work with other types of vegetable oils.'"

Comments

“We would happily toss our salad with it,

[spacecowboy420]

They toss their own salads?

Yikes...

[keiferb]

"We would happily toss our salad with it,"

They need a much, much better PR person.

Ultimate hippy car

[jebiester]

A car that runs on flower power?. Wouldn't that make the ultimate hippy car?

Especially as a VW combi van.

This could actually be really cool...

[Drunken_Jackass]

The modern Hydrogen economy has to get over a huge hurdle in the wide-scale distribution network of H2.

Distribution for H2 is pathetically inefficient. In order to ship it at an efficient level, they have to compress it into liquid form. That takes up a lot of energy, along with the associated costs of now transporting a very cold liquid (yeah - not very energy efficient either).

If H2 can be made using a novel approach, you can minimize the huge potential transport and distribution costs by setting up a lot of small production facilities (local refineries?).

This could be a pretty big deal.

Re:This could actually be really cool...

[mOoZik]

I disagree. On Alan Alda's "Scientific American Frontiers," they showed a novel approach in which hydrogen is produced "on site." That is, it uses a reverse fuel cell in every "hydrogen station" to develop hydrogen, then it is liquified, and delivered via hydrogen pumps, much like the way you pump gas, but with a slightly different hookup. That, in my opinion, is a better means of distribution as it completely eliminates the need for transport, pipes, large factories, and so forth.

Re:This could actually be really cool...

[R2.0]

But where does the energy to make the H2 come from? Currently, it takes a cubic assload of electricity to generate hydrogen, so the distributed production model would need huge increases in the electrical power generating infrastructure, which is already near maximum utilization.

The alternate is producing the H2 at a location with cheap power (hydro, desert solar collectors), and then shipping the H2 where it needs to be. But that has its own issues, as you pointed out.

I'll be honest - I'm not holding out for the "hydrogen economy" in my lifetime. Sounds to much like shale oil - grand idea, sounds good politically, and goes precisely nowhere. (Kind of like Carter's other big idea - Middle East Peace)

Centralised Power

[sbszine]

It's like an all-electric car... sure it uses no gas but that power has to come from somewhere to begin with. You've only moved the problem to someone else's back yard.

That's the whole point: one problem to solve (at the power plant) instead of many to solve (at the cars). If you run many electric cars from a single power station, then you have:

• one point to filter for emissions (in the case of fossil fuels)
• no car pollution in cities(!)
• an easy upgrade path when you replace your coal plant with biodiesel or solar or fusion or whatever
• possible economies of scale (subject to electrical transmission losses)

...and so on.

Re:Centralised Power

[Smidge204]

one point to filter for emissions
That's not necessarily a good thing. Basically you would be concentrting all of the resulting pollution in one area instead of spreading it out more or less evenly. Assuming nature cleans up the pollution at a certain rate (say, as by density of plant life and large bodies of water to absorb and recycle CO2) then you actually made the problem much worse in some areas.

no car pollution in cities
Ah, well, as long as it's not in your back yard I guess it's okay then!

an easy upgrade path when you replace your coal plant with biodiesel or solar or fusion or whatever
Except that the existing power distribution system is already strained and aging such that it can barely keep up with peek demands today. It would cost billions upon billions to construct new powerplants and additional infastructure to handle the additional demand of the now millions of electrical vehicles feeding off of it.

possible economies of scale
See above. In general you try not to build powerplants too far from where the power is used (obvious?). And you will definately need more of them right from the start.

Now take a straight biodiesel economy model:

Virtually no infastructure costs. Everything you need to produce, transport and distribute liquid fuel is already in place.

Less pollution on the grand scale. BD burns cleaner than the oil and coal (especially coal) used in powerplants, and the resulting pollution is spread out evenly such that nature can process it more effectively. If you're worried about soot (which BD produces less of anyway) there are already very effective filtering systems for small vehicles in widespread use.

Excellent scaling economics. Unlike electricity you CAN produce/refine all of the BD in one spot for the entire country (even though you probably wouldn't want to). There is basically no restriction on the location of the refineries, and the distribution infastructure of trucks, boats and pipes is more flexible than high voltage transmission lines.
The only problem is "where does te energy come from in the first place?", which the centalized electric system doesn't address either. Fusion power has to actually exist before you can even consider it, and all of the other possibilities such as oil, coal and nuclear all rely on the very same sources we're trying to get away from.

I have read articles about the possible use of algae for BD production. According to the article (which I found a version of on google) you can farm a high-oil content algae species for the purpose, which eliminates basically all of the problems of cultivating and fertilizing land for growing plants (algae doesn't need tilling...) Simply excavate a shallow lake somewhere relatively low and let gravity fill it with seawater, then start growing. If you're clever you can use a system of dykes to let the tide purge the lake for you and filter off the algae as the lake drains. Then you run it through a giant juicer and add a little methanol and lye to remove the glycerin from the product, and you got Biodiesel ready to burn in just about any existing vehicle.
=Smidge=

Only if you ignore the realities

[Tau Zero]

H2 from sunflower oil. Okay, sounds great. But tell me, how much sunflower oil would it take to power the nation (or any reasonable fraction thereof, such as the transport sector) using this invention?

You don't know? Didn't even stop to ask?

I didn't think so.

Being a wet blanket bugs me sometimes, but somebody has to do the dirty work of dragging everything back down to earth and facing facts. Here are some:

1. The reactor doesn't generate hydrogen with 90% efficiency, it generates hydrogen of 90% purity. Given that the off-gas is about half methane (RTFA) it appears to me to be very inefficient. (Note: neither the author nor your Slashdot editor bothered to RTFA either.)
2. There are already engines, and even fuel cells, which can burn hydrocarbons directly. Sunflower oil makes reasonable diesel fuel as-is. Solid-oxide or molten-carbonate fuel cells can reform fuels internally, and while they might coke up on straight sunflower oil they'd probably work just fine after it had been steam-reformed a bit.
3. Hydrogen as a motor fuel suffers from huge problems with storage. People see it as sexy but for all the wrong reasons.

I could see this as another technology for making compact laptop power supplies whose fuel couldn't be used to bring down an airplane (just TRY making a fuel-air bomb with sunflower oil). The key to renewable energy? Gimme a break.

Re:Only if you ignore the realities

[JGski]

Yep. Hydrogen is a pretty poor energy carrier (not energy source!!) for several reasons, first being energy "return": oil is 100:1 for Saudi oil (100 barrels out for 1 barrel in to cover extraction, transportation and refining) to as low as 10:1 for Alaskan/Texan oil. Compare to other sources: natural gas 50:1, wind 3:1, solar 4:1 (silicon fab operations and materials), ethanol 1:1 or less (need to count inputs from fertilizer and farmer equipment fuel), hydrogen 0.5:1 (energy in for electrolysis with losses plus transportation).

And then since hydrogens's only a carrier (like a rechargeable battery - there is no such thing as a "hydrogen well") you still need a real energy source to "charge" it. Sunflower oil might be a potential source...until you do a back-of-the-envelope on how many arable acres you would have to grow it on and what percentage (most) of the US's arable acres are only so due to energy-intensive and oil-intensive farming providing water, fertilizer, pesticides, etc. and how much of the "naturally arable" land has been paved over for suburbs and cities (e.g. the entire Santa Clara valley aka Silicon Valley).

Even this sunflower one makes me wonder: what are the fertilizer and farm equipment inputs? where does the energy for the steam come from? So what's the net energy return? I'd put money on it being no better than ethanol!

An interesting post I saw else where: for good energy return on low density sources like biomass you want to have minimal energy inputs from petro or other sources. As an energy cash crop you want to have something that grows pretty much like a weed. Guess what produces good quality oil and grows like a weed? :-) Well, "weed" of course, or actually hemp. Wouldn't it be funny if we need to rely on hemp for the "Peak Oil" time.

Re:Only if you ignore the realities

[bhima]

I don't think it matters what percentage of energy consumption a given energy strategy will meet; because the hegemony of petroleum is not likely to be repeated soon, by any alternative energy sources.

The real problem is the efficiency and the practicality. (Your other points)

Biodiesel and Ethanol are good examples. Biodiesel can be made from a variety of sources, is efficient enough to be workable now, is compatible with the existing energy infrastructure, and is compatible with a large number of diesel engines (In fact I use B20 nearly exclusively). Ethanol is problematic in a number of ways, but still more or less workable. So given the right situations alternative energy sources can be useful, despite the fact that an entire economy doesn't use them. And given enough alternatives western societies can lessen their dependence on energy sources which must be purchased from unsavory regimes. This can be nothing but a good thing

Unfortunately the site is down so I haven't read the article so I can't comment about this specific implementation. However, I view anything H2 related as problematic because of both its incompatibility with existing energy delivery infrastructure and the ridiculous hype surrounding it.

A better catalyst?

[Randym]

The catalysts, which are key to the process, orchestrate a series of chemical maneuvers that ultimately result in an increased hydrogen yield. First, one of the catalysts (the nickel-based unit) absorbs the oxygen from the air and this interaction heats up the reactor bed of the device. Simultaneously, in the presence of heat, another catalyst (a carbon-based adsorbent) releases any carbon dioxide previously trapped in the device.

I wonder if they have tried this one. It's designed to supress methane production and increase hydrogen production.

From the article:
...a Raneynickel catalyst, named after Murray Raney, who first patented the alloy in 1927.

Raney-nickel is a porous catalyst made of about 90 percent nickel (Ni) and 10 percent aluminum (Al). While Raney-nickel proved somewhat effective at separating hydrogen from biomass-derived molecules, the researchers improved the material's effectiveness by adding more tin (Sn), which stops the production of methane and instead generates more hydrogen. Relative to other catalysts, the Raney-NiSn can perform for long time periods (at least 48 hours) and at lower temperatures (roughly 225 degrees Celsius).