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New Way to Make Hydrogen
zymano writes "Hydrogen is expensive to make and difficult to store. The most common way in making hydrogen is electrolyzing pure water. A new startup is trying a new way to make hydrogen. The process uses sodium which industry shuns because it generates sparks and heat when mixed with water. Signa has devised a way to mix sodium with silica gel or crystalline silicon to create a powder that essentially strips electrons from the sodium molecules in advance and stores them. When water is introduced, the chemical reaction proceeds calmly. The powder generates hydrogen efficiently. More than 9 percent of a kilogram of the powder gets converted to hydrogen and little energy is lost through heat."
Michael Lefenfeld and James Dye of Signa Chemistry wanted to make rooms smell better. Instead, they stumbled on a way that could make hydrogen fuel cells a practical reality.
Who wants to bet that Michael and James have a room full of stinky unshowered nerds to thank for stumbling onto this innovation?
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
They're not making hydrogen. They're just gathering the stuff that was formed at the start of the universe (or created by God if you're a dumb creationist).
Evil people are out to get you.
"...if you're a dumb creationist."
You've repeated yourself.
Well, you combine it with oxygen to form water, and then ship it through a pipeline.... oh, nevermind...
That's right. All your base.
A use for all those "WARNING DO NOT EAT ME" packets.
There is truth in humor.
if i only had some mod points... you have, good sir, embiggened us all with your cromulent analysis.
IIRC pure sodium is generally extracted from molten salt by electrolysis. So that means not only do you have to expend a huge amount of energy to get your sodium, you're also producing toxic, ozone destroying chlorine gas as a byproduct. Oh well, at least they can say it's GREEN!
One of these days I'm moving to Theory - everything works there
Why do we need to make hydrogen? There's TONS of it sitting right out in the open, ripe for the taking!
My fellow slashdotters, what we need only to do is MINE THE SUN!
All we need is a space shuttle, and a team of roughneck oil workers. With a bit of training they will be SPACE MINERS, and we can send them on their merry way into the sun to mine it for us!
Hydrogen is not difficult to store. All you do is combine it with oxygen and it turns into water. Here on this planet, we have been so successful that we have oceans of the stuff just lying around. You'll see it when you get here.
This must be some novel use of the word "safe" I'm not familiar with....
Maybe it didn't catch on because mercury is expensive to store, manipulate, and dispose of? How is your local public works department going to feel about mercury-sodium amalgam entering the waste stream?~Idarubicin
Two words: hydrogen embrittlement.
It turns out that one of the most useful ways to store and transport hydrogen is by chemically bonding it in long chain carbon molecules. The resulting liquid has a high energy density (per volume) and is relatively easy to store.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!