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."

Comments

"make" hydrogen?

[Call Me Black Cloud]

Liberate it, perhaps. I think any method of actually making it would come with its own set of problems.

What do you do with the

[Anonymous Coward]

mush of reacted silica gel, sodium, and water??

Say you need one kilo of hydrogen... (Which is about 6 cubic inches in liquifidy form, which is roughly equal to 7.5 gallons of gasolene for the energy you get out of it.. and I go thru around 15 gallons of gass in a week due to my job) ..you'd have about 10-11 kilos of mush left afterwards.

What do you do to recycle or reuse this stuff? How much energy do you have to put into (transporting it, creating/obtaining it, mixing it, etc) it before you can get any out, and how much energy is needed to deal with the waste afterwards?

Because at my current usage a person would have to produce 88 kilos of left overs... per month. Just for me to keep my job with a hydrogen powered car instead of a gasolene powered one I already own.

seems very innefficient for such a efficient proccess.

Re:who's electrolysing water?

[child_of_mercy]

well it all depends on the coal and exactly how they get it out.

But there are huge markets for the by-products if it's done right.

There's a lot of money being spent on carbon sequestration (putting it back udnerground) right now as well.

but with this industry you can bet it'll be the cheapest and dirtiest option they can find.

Is it a chemical reaction or a catalyst?

[stuartkahler]

So is their sodium-silica gel a catalyst that reduces the energy barrier to split oxygen from hydrogen through electrolyzing, or is it sucking up the oxygen atoms and releasing hydrogen as a byproduct of the reaction?

Basically what I want to know is, do you just keep feeding more water and electricity into the system, or are you going to be continuously replacing the used up sodium-silica gel?

Still breaking water

[GrouchoMarx]

Oh good. So we have a more efficient way to destroy one of the most critical resources in the world that has no alternative (water) in order to make a highly volatile fuel source that has viable alternatives.

Except in the "first world", water is not exactly cheap and plentiful. The US may be able to waste water on making hydrogen, but do you really think that Somalia is going to be able to? Or Bangladesh? Or Peru? There are much better things to do with water than break it. Other future-fuel sources, however, would be equally useful to any country and not waste a valuable resource.

Hydrogen is still a silly idea, especially when chicken guts and corn are far cheaper, and far more plentiful. :-)

Re:Yes, but how efficient overall?

[red990033]

This does help solve the problem of distrobution however. You can just ship the powder, and at "gas stations" the water is mixed, and you fill up your tank. Or maybe even a fuel system will be made where you just add the powder directly to the applied device(car, lawnmower, whatever) and the process happens inside the machine itself.

Flammable

[Bastian]

FTA: Methanol is flammable

And hydrogen isn't?

Re:Yes, but how efficient overall?

[Tatarize]

Well, this is a pretty nice idea. I see it working in only one way. As a storage for the fuel. NaCl doesn't have any energy. H2O doesn't have any energy (chemical). So no matter what the only energy you get out is going to have been put in in a more efficient form. However, if the powder is dense enough in energy that it could be used as the power source itself, and then just recycle the water.

Ofcourse the original power still come from (mostly) coal to make the electricity to make the split the salt, to break the water, to create the electricity, to power the car, to drive to the house that Jack built. The electrity to electricity conversion is the reason H2 will not be used in cars, unless you can dodge it with a *real* breakthrough, or have the H2 source beat the crap out of batteries it's not going to work. If you could get a pound of Cesium to power the car for a few months that might be worthwhile.

This said, I'll let you savvy people in on the future. The cars of the future are going to be several generation advanced hybrid cars. They will be flexible fuel hybrids that you can directly charge with your house's power. They will also be augmented with solar panels on the roof, which will also be used to charge the batteries. And if by some freak event H2 becomes available it will also have a fuel cell to charge up the batteries. They will work like a normal car, an electric car, and a solar car all in one, with reclaiming breaks and shocks ofcourse. In theory you could do your driving for the day without using a drop of your gas, but it's there if you need it. And if it's not there you could probably do a few miles per hour with just the solar.

You've got to be frickin kidding me!

[barfy]

You want to make 10 times the volume of stuff for hydrogen you need, and you end up with 9 times the volume of stuff as *waste*?!

You've got to be fricken' kidding me.

Ok here is a major hint to the world leaders of this planet...

Nuclear power plant, Gulf of Mexico == Hydrogen. Ship it to all the countries that don't want or have nuclear. Become new major energy provider...

This is not rocket science people! Stop making it harder than it is!

Hydrogen is a red herring

[Colin Smith]

Any electricity which can be used to generate hydrogen can now be stored in batteries with a higher energy density than compressed hydrogen gas and yes, with negligible degradation. Go check out the state of the art in battery technology.

e.g.
http://www.toshiba.co.jp/about/press/2005_03/pr290 1.htm
http://www.sionpower.com/

You'll see them in mobile phones and laptops first. They'll make it into electric vehicles in a few years.

Generating electricity to produce hydrogen to produce electricity is, well, stupid.

Re:Hydrogen is a red herring

[crawling_chaos]

How many charge cycles before the nasty insides of those batteries end up inside a landfill? A hydrogen tank can get a lot more re-use and is probably simpler to recycle than a battery. Sion says that their batteries can be recharged "hundreds of times" which, in addition to smelling of marketing speak (look ma, no numbers!), is still a pretty fast degradation cycle.

Lithium is considered a pollutant, as is sulfur. Perhaps you might wish to re-think the stupidity of fuel cells in that light?

Re:Hydrogen is a red herring

[skelly33]

"Any electricity which can be used to generate hydrogen can now be stored in batteries with a higher energy density than compressed hydrogen gas and yes, with negligible degradation."

But the entire world does not and will not operate from rechargable batteries. Take a home in rural Anytown, U.S.A which has no connection to the power grid, in the middle of the woods so that solar and wind power are out and the only power they get is from a low-output hydro-power generator from a dammed up creek on the property. Rechargable batteries are not the best option for powering their water heater.

The best solution is a comustible gas supply and gas-powered appliances. We have such a model in place today in the form of natural gas and propane services. Hydrogen is nearly a drop-in substitute for those systems, but has the versatility to be ran through a fuel cell to generate electricity as well. Rechargable batteries do not have the option to be used for a combustion-type heat source.

I think this does not invalidate the usefulness of batteries, but that it does illustrate that rechargable batteries are not the end-all solution to stored energy and that there are cases where we have a need for a transportable, combustible fuel.

Re:Fossil Fuels...

[AndrewHowe]

I travel sometimes between Vienna and Gyor (Hungary), and the train passes through a great big wind farm. I think they look pretty sweet.

Cut out the middle man

[shiloh.sharps]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't we just using hydrogen as a energy storage system here?
That is, we take energy (in the form of electricity) from the sun or wind or where ever and use it to create hydrogen gas or compounds that will create hydrogen. All of which methods are less than 100% efficient
Shouldn't we instead work on ways to store the electricity directly, using batteries or whatever?
We already have a electrical distribution system that works fairly well, why not use it?

Re:Cut out the middle man

[KillerBob]

The problem is that batteries, even Lithium-Ion batteries, are extremely heavy by comparison. A Lithium cell produces about 3V potential difference. In order to produce enough juice to run something like an electric car, you need a lot of them wired in series. And then, in order to have decent battery life, you end up needing even more of them wired in parallel. By the time you've got a viable option for running an electric car, you're talking 300-500kg depending on the size of the car. When cars themselves often weigh less than 1500kg, that's a significant increase in weight.

There's also the cost. A Prius is a great alternative for a hybrid car, but what the manufacturer doesn't want to tell you when you're buying it is that the batteries only last about 6-8 years, and then they cost $10,000 to replace.

Others have wondered the same thing you just asked. And then they've looked at the price tag, and the increased weight, and decided that they need an alternative that can be as cheap and easy to refill as gasoline. Personally, I think the solution lies not in fuel cells, but in implementing a renewable-energy way to generate hydrogen.

Consider... I was at Canadian Tire yesterday. There, I saw a 400W wind generator for $700. 400W of juice is more than enough to run an electrolysis reaction. Set it up with a rain barrel and something in which to store the hydrogen, and you've got a renewable source of hydrogen for less than $1500 outlay. Sure, there are more efficient ways to store the energy being generated, but it's also freely renewable (no $10,000 expenditure every 8 years). All that's missing is a car that burns hydrogen.

And for times of drought, or during the winter, all it needs is a source of water, such as city water or a well. (You *could* use some of the wind power to melt snow, but that, like a rain barrel, wouldn't be all that useful on a scale larger than one or two cars)

You obviously weren't alive in the 1970s

[HBI]

Within the measure of current technology in 1973-4, let us say, all of those measures were tried back then. The motivator was the Arab oil embargoes intended to punish the West for supporting Israel. At the same time, lead catalysts were restricted for environmental reasons, resulting in all new cars from the 1976 model year on being unleaded-only.

There was another gasoline shortage in 1979.

The popularity of the US government response, which was to mandate changes to automobiles, compel odd/even license plate rationing, and make a lot of noise about alternative energy sources, can be partially seen in the 1980 election results.

Re:You obviously weren't alive in the 1970s

[madro]

Is it difficult to set up better public transportation in the US?

Yes. US consumers have had cheap gas so long, the effects (sprawling metro areas, big box stores) make it much harder to construct a transit system that people will use. (They'll want other people to use it so that the roads become clearer for *them*.)

Also, most other countries are smaller than the US. Amtrak has been a disaster in part because the notion of a nationwide passenger rail company does not fit well when much of the population is concentrated on near coasts thousands of miles apart.

I think it's possible to set up better public transportation -- but it requires a lot of zoning changes, support for biking and walking paths, and some innovative pricing of road use (somehow make them more expensive) and transit use (make sure it's cheap or free). And don't even *think* about passenger rail -- a fixed infrastructure (track) in a flexible world isn't the best idea.

As the price of oil rises, people will adapt. It's just unfortunate that because of the lack of foresight, many people will end up in trouble because the economy will suffer for a while, and a recession plus higher gas prices would hit the working poor the hardest.

Re:Fossil Fuels...

[RockModeNick]

My main problem with wind power is inconsistencies in wind generally necessitate extensive, ugly, expensive backup systems for keeping dips in power service from doing harm and the fact that the ecconomy of wind and solar power is an ecconomy where land area and production are equivilent, and a land dependent ecconomy leads to feudalism, not a direction we can so much go from here.

Designing cities

[sczimme]

make cities better designed for walking and cycling

You know, in discussions like this someone will usually mention that cities should "be designed for X". This strikes me as a slightly silly argument:

1) The most densely-populated cities (where X would likely provide the greatest benefit) have already been built. Retrofitting features to implement X would very likely be hideously expensive and impractical, e.g. where X == bike paths in a major city.

2) Are new cities founded/designed/built at such a rate that changing the designs to accommodate X would provide any substantial benefit?

Re:Designing cities

[sczimme]

Zoning laws and long term urban planning can reduce the need for cars by making urban sparl less desirable for developers... make incentives for residentual reclamation of parts of the downtown areas ect

Fair enough - that's a good point. However, the problem (as I see it) is that essentially every extant city already has a significant amount of sprawl around it; this was the result of the urban flight that took place [IIRC] from the 1950s to 1970s. Some places - like the suburbs of Chicago, e.g. Naperville - are experiencing their own housing/development booms right now. Unfortunately I don't see an opportunity to redesign such areas for at least another 50 to 75 years, and that is if an entire neighborhood can be razed/rebuilt en masse.

Perhaps /. should commandeer part of Nebraska or something and start from scratch. Flat land means easy walking. :-)

Re:Designing cities

[Anonymous Coward]

If you want to stop urban sprawl, it occurs to me five things reign supreme. In order:

1. Low taxes
2. Affordable housing
3. Good schools
4. Low crime
5. Easy to get to where you want to go

Sadly, 3-5 are usually seen as mutually excluding 1, and most ham-handed attempts at 2 inevitably wind up doing more harm than good (often by getting rid of 4).

Which, of course, is why people move further out. Lower taxes and more house for the money make sense every time.

Here in Charlotte, they've got the idea that they want to be a "world-class city." That apparently means having high taxes, blowing a lot of that money on boondoggles like sports arenas and artsy nonsense, and getting light rail so that we can subsidize each rider to the tune of over $10 per ride. Sadly, that vision doesn't include 1-4...

Re:who's electrolysing water?

[kilodelta]

You are right on the money. For example, Providence, RI used to have trolleys all over the city in from the mid 1800's to the mid 1900's. Granted, the earliest were pulled by horses while the later were propelled by electric motors.

Not only the city but the entire state has a number of abandoned railways. Of course state government, being in the pocket of big business, thinks turning abandoned rail into bike paths will solve everything. They can't be more wrong.

There have been many proposals for light rail serving east bay and west bay communities. But the Dept. of Transportation loathes rail. So they dump the money into shoddy highway repairs, etc.

Our state public transit system is ok, but rail would make it better. But until we're pushed against the wall nobody wants to think about sharing a train car with the unwashed and smelly. In reality, this is a myth at least during commuter hours. But the myth prevails.

Nobody is saying the energy cost fo this stuff

[Overzeetop]

So, what is it? Is the process of mining, refining, fabricating, combining, dissociating, and transporting all off this stuff net-energy-positive, or are we just shifting the burden. The latter, of course, as this is just a storage mechanism.

It seems like we're doing an awful lot of work, in terms of energy in, to get hydrogen in a form that can be stored, transported, and used. I'm sure batteries produce lots of crap too, but what are the relative effects, and does this particular process scale to global proportions? Seems like a pretty low yield (9%) with a lot of unsavory byproducts produced.

(Of course, this doesn't even meniton my normal "hydrogen is a bad thisg to give to consumers" rant. Example: 2 rednecks, a trashcan liner, a full tank of hydrogen, and a lighter.)

Re:who's electrolysing water?

[gordo3000]

its not something that does damage as in sets us back. people really overblow this problem. It means growth will slow down. And guess what, those rising oil prices are the greatest incentive towards making cars more "green".

Think about all the people who choose to buy fuel efficient cars. Every person I know who buys them does so because it saves them a great deal of money on gas. Oil prices get up to 70 or 80 dollars a barrel(which isn't hard to imagine with production not increasing by much and China beginning to consume oil on the level of the US) and you will see very few people who are willing to spend 100 dollars to drive a hummer 100 miles. It just gets too damn expensive.

Money works both ways. Making it drives what companies will produce and saving it drives what consumers demand(in large part). So I say if you really want to protect the environment from car emissions, find some way to double the price of oil rather quickly.

Writers who know science???

[Atraxen]

More than 9 percent of a kilogram of the powder gets converted to hydrogen and little energy is lost through heat.
I can't wait for the day when science writers actually know a tiny bit about their covered subject. Now, I'm no chemist (actually, holy cow, I AM!) but it seems to me that neither silicon nor sodium is hydrogen, so the powder is not being converted. It may be consumed by the reaction, but not converted. I teach this concept in general chemistry - it's called conservation of mass. I also see it taught in 7th grade public school classrooms. (Perhaps we should revisit the education reform posting of a few days ago...)

Re:who's electrolysing water?

[brainstyle]

its not something that does damage as in sets us back. people really overblow this problem

Unfortunately, this isn't necessarily the case. We are extremely dependent on oil, not just for cheap energy, but as a basis for making stuff. Fertilizers, plastics, lubricants and all sorts of things necessary for the current economy are derived from oil. If the price of oil goes through the roof, things just may go down the crapper.

Having said that, I hope it's not the case, that the cost of oil keeps rising, and we figure out a way to maintain our standard of living without the reliance on oil we have.

Not a hydrogen solution!

[Anonymous Coward]

Not mentioned was that sodium is produced by electrolysis of molten salt, which is utterly energy inefficient!! And that electricity comes from...

I'm sure plenty of "Hydrogen Economy" morons with hail this as some wonder technology that justifies all their engineering illiteracy and ignorance of thermodynamics!

Stop trying to engineer human behavior.

[RoverDaddy]

I'm sick of people trying to find ways to punish others for the way they want to live. At least in America, it's obvious that millions of people want to be spread out and don't want to live on top of each other in cities. The 'American Dream' of owning a home is still valid even as prices skyrocket so fewer young people can get there.

I think the problem with suburbs is not that the population is so spread out, but actually that there are not -enough- downtown centers. As the formerly rural space between towns starts to fill up with McMansions, it's too bad that zoning boards don't allow (and perhaps encourage) new commercial centers to form at the town borders. Then, those comfy suburbanites would not have to fill up the overburdened roads leading to the 'old' town center just for a gallon of milk or a trip to the post office.

Way way back when towns were founded, a distance of 5 to 10 miles from town to town probably made sense. Even into the late 20th century, the population on the outskirts of a town was fairly low, so there weren't that many people driving long distances to the town center. Now, the towns where I live are facing the prospect of 100% build-out of developable land (at least I hope people realize that's where we're headed). Since so many people just don't want to move to the commerce, I think the solution is to move the commerce out to them.

By the way, I happen to be somebody who has never commuted into a city to work. I live in the suburbs and work in the suburbs. No it's not ideal for finding a public transit solution, but it means that I neither suffer from nor contribute to the congestion of the city. I don't understand why the people who scream about sprawl seem to assume that all jobs are in the cities, and that every last surburbanite is stuck in traffic at rush hour. There are alternatives.

Quitting Slashdot

[Danathar]

Seriously....the lack of quality that Slashdot has degraded to is getting out of control.

After this article...maybe I'll try just ignoring Slashdot or a week or so...read Ars Technica and Tomshardware.

In the beginning Slashdot was pretty cool...Now it's not so cool

Re:who's electrolysing water?

[M-G]

And most current production of hydrogen is done by cracking natural gas, not scaling up grade school science class projects...