Fuel Cell Powered Scooter

!Freeky2BGeeky writes "In an article by Fuel Cell Works, Samsung Engineering announced that they've developed a Hydrogen-based scooter which can go 140Km on 6 liters of hydrogen. The downside? The process that produces the hydrogen uses a component in short supply."

Comments

Lots of ways to make hydrogen

[Bruce Perens]

There are lots of ways to make hydrogen. Probably the best is to electrolyze it from water using electricity provided by solar power or another clean means of power.

I suspect that an internal-combustion engine such as one already used in production motorcycles could be tuned to burn a hydrogen mix, and that 6 liters (at what pressure? liquid?) for that mileage is not really news. Indeed, there may not be much new science here and the release mostly propoganda.

Bruce

It's either the infrasture....

[novakyu]

...or simply supply of fuel.

From the article: The newly-developed technology uses a water-based solution of sodium borohydride, made from sodium borate, to produce hydrogen gas.

The downside is that there are only about 300 million tons of sodium borate worldwide, located mostly in Tibet, and that annual global production of sodium borohydride stands at 10,000 tons, it added.

So, other than the fact that it produces less pollution (I would hesitate to say less "green gas", though since vapor is a green gas) it has no advantage over gasoline powered scooter.

In fact, have we yet seen any viable hydrogen-powered vehicle? I thought most models/prototypes we have so far were less energy efficient than gasoline powered cars (even with infrastructure to provide hydrogen nation-,world-wide, we have to have a way of generating them, and electrolysis is simply not the most efficient way (and certainly less so than internal combustion) way to get hydrogen).

SODIUM BOROHYDRIDE

[ndevice]

sodium borohydride doesn't look like a very nice chemical

Chrysler beat 'em to it 3 years ago!

[Kevin Burtch]

Scooter?
Chrysler made a minivan that used the exact same chemicals and principles 3 years ago.

The interesting part is, in all of the articles I've seen about the Chrysler implimentation, they state that the largest reserves are in the western US... removing our dependence on foreign oil. This is the first time I've seen Tibet mentioned as the primary source of the chemical.

Acetylene powered scooter?

[Zog The Undeniable]

The method of producing hydrogen kind of reminds me of the way acetylene lamps used to work; dripping water onto calcium carbide releases the gas. No environmental benefits though, since you release CO2 when you make the carbide *and* when you burn the acetylene, which (being highly unsaturated) has a high carbon content and is far dirtier than gasoline. Acetylene has a notoriously smoky flame unless you burn it in pure oxygen, as in an oxy-acetylene torch.

Hydrogen from Sodium Borohydrate.... Patents ?.

[Gopal.V]

Would this be affected by the patent on catalysed reaction to produce hydrogen (using a sodium borohydrate solution ?).

The fuel source itself is not very newsworthy. It was around in early 2000 as well (named the Millenium Cell. Of course, it does not explode unlike the CNG powered ones. Recently (1-2 month) back we had a blaze up near our office when a Truck rear-ended a gas powered car (it's very common these days) and the gas tank ruptured, exploded and threw the car's rear door about 3 feet into truck's engine (breaking through 1/2 inch metal sheet). Thankfully only the driver was in the car and he was saved by the rear seat from the explosion.

This is not a viable alternative. But, Hey .. it was done because some guy said "We CAN". And that's reason enough :)

Hydrogen is not the answer

[little1973]

Hydrogen is an energy carrier and not an energy source. Currently, hydrogen is produced from fossil fuels or natural gas. Electrolyzing hydrogen from water is very expensive. We need very efficient solar panels for the hydrogen economy to start.

Biodiesel looks more promising. There are some algae which contains 50% oil. Here's a link:
http://www.unh.edu/p2/biodiesel/article_alg e.html

Boron as a fuel,

[tonywestonuk]

So, can we not manufacture sodium-Borate, from Sodium, and Boron?... So, after doing a few Googles in search of the answer, I came across this page, that isn't entirely unrelated

http://www.public.iastate.edu/~mqolson/papertwo.ht ml

This is about using Boron itself, as a fuel. Apparently, Boron will burn, however, by-products of burning is just Boron - Oxide, which can be turned back to boron. The energy density of this process is > gasoline.... Tony.

Re:Boron as a fuel,

[DamienNightbane]

The page says that one of boron's advantages is that it requires pure oxygen to burn, and thus won't ignite in our atmosphere. Doesn't that imply that a vehicle using boron as a fuel would require it's own supply of pure oxygen to run?

Now correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't pure oxygen tend to make things explode? I think that any safety advantage provided by the non-flamability of boron would be negated by the explosion inducing properties of pure oxygen.

Don't think that's accurate

[SimianOverlord]

The sodium borate is being used somewhat like an enzyme, in that it facilitates a reaction but remains ultimately unchanged. It can be reconverted back into sodium borohydrate. So a fuel cell of this type doesn't need any extra sodium borate once created. And thankfully doesn't make any sodium hydroxide, which is a pretty nasty chemical.

See here.

Anyway, fuel cells will make cities better places by removing gasoline fumes, but when you consider they have to use conventional power sources ie nuclear/coal/natural gas/oil power to ultimately charge, their environmental credentials don't look so great. Still, it could make a great difference to the pleasantness of city life; I've noticed an afternoon in London gives me black bogies all day.

Fuel Cell Powered?

[ceeam]

Did not RTFA (nor am I going to), but is there conversion to electicity somewhere? If so - is it really needed once you got hydrogen? Wouldn't it be more effective just to burn it? And if there's no electricity involved (which I suspect) then WTF "fuel cell" is doing in the article title? Let's not broaden the terms or you can call your car's engine a "fuel cell".

Re:So, my bicycle...

[malfunct]

I'm afraid if you do the calculations there are not enough calories in the 6L of Coke to actually propel your body that far. Humans, while being truely amazing machines, are not terribly energy effcient from what I understand.

Yes I know this was a joke, but I've seen many posts saying that bicycles are great machines and forget that thier source of propulsion is probably not as effcient as a gasoline engine.

The solution to the energy crisis is less humans.

Hydrogen

[static0verdrive]

Even Fuel-cell cars and buses have been out for a while. (I've heard of about 3 fuel-cell buses running in Vancouver).

Obvious oil company agenda aside, I believe the lack of success in fuel-cell powered transportation is due largly to there being no truly safe way to carry the hydrogen around with you. You're basically driving a bomb that's touchier than current IC cars with gas tanks (not to mention an empty gas tank is more explosive than a full one, whereas in the hydrogen's case, BOOOM!)

I did read somewhere that "they" are making titanium casing for hydrogen storage, but can it be enough? Gives new meaning to the term "car-bomb"...