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Hydrogen Stored in Safe High Density Pellets

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the get-you-where-you're-going dept.

sunbeam60 writes "A group of scientists are going to present their breakthrough in hydrogen storage this Wednesday. In contrast to previous storage mechanisms, this method binds hydrogen to a pellet which is completely safe to handle at room temperature. While bound in this medium no hydrogen loss occurs, enabling hydrogen to be stored cheaply for indefinite periods. When needed, the extraction of hydrogen is relatively simple. The pellets exceed all criteria set by the US Department of Energy for 2015, enabling a car to drive more than 500 km on a 50 L tank (13 MJ/l)"

13 of 889 comments (clear)

  1. How does it come out? by BiAthlon · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Ok, so I read the article and it's fairly light. The question I have is how do we get the hydrogen back out?

    1. Re:How does it come out? by Ryan+Amos · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You answered your own question there. The hydrogen economy is *not* uneconomical, but the fossil fuel based method of making it is. Fossil fuels (coal, petroleum distillates, natural gas, etc.) will run out. Maybe not in our lifetimes, but probably in our immediate offspring's lives. They will become scarce in our lifetime, and very expensive. When this happens, economics takes hold and the cheapest solution appropriate for a global scale will be used.

      Nuclear power is a short-term solution. It's pretty clean, nuclear reactors are safe (at least far safer than gasoline refineries; if you live on the southeast side of Houston, you know what I mean.) We'll eventually figure out how to make fusion work, I think it's only a matter of time. But the nuclear/hydrogen combo is pretty clean compared to the double whammy of coal/gasoline. And soon to be much cheaper in comparison.

    2. Re:How does it come out? by VernonNemitz · · Score: 4, Insightful

      That's BAD! Total energy efficiency, if internal combustion is used, is horrible:
      The figures I have to work with are:
      50% conversion efficiency of fuel energy to electricity in large power plant.
      66% conversion efficiency of electrolysis to make hydrogen.
      66% conversion efficiency of making electricity in fuel cell.
      95% conversion efficiency of electricity to motive power.
      35% conversion efficiency of internal combustion to motive power.
      SO: Total efficiency of a direct-burning fossil-fuel car is 35%
      Total efficiency of fuel cell car is computed as 50% x 66% x 66% x 95%, or about 21%
      Total efficiency of a hydrogen internal combustion car is 50% x 66% x 35% or about 12%.

    3. Re:How does it come out? by Phanatic1a · · Score: 4, Insightful

      If you have a way to generate the hydrogen that's cheap enough, you don't care about that inefficiency. Heck, the efficiency of a gasoline-powered IC car is about 12%, but people don't care, are are only beginning to care about the inefficiency now that gas is as expensive as it is.

      To make hydrogen meaningful, you need a way to generate large quantities of it cheaply, which basically means using nuclear power as your primary means of generating electricity. I mean, sure, you could get it by cracking hydrocarbons, but since your goal is to get away from needing hydrocarbons, that doesn't help much. And if you use nuclear power as your primary means of generating electricity, you can make enough hydrogen that 12% efficiency from an IC engine is just fine.

    4. Re:How does it come out? by Spy+Hunter · · Score: 4, Insightful
      You don't gain any efficiency at all [with eletric vehicles].

      You don't think one centralized fossil fuel powered turbine plant, operating with a huge economy of scale, with the latest efficiency technology and pollution scrubbers, running at one speed all the time, is more efficient than thousands of poorly-maintained piston engines, purchased more for their power than their efficiency, constantly being started and stopped?

      The efficiency gain could be significant, even if electric cars were powered solely by fossil fuel-generated electricity. Furthermore, the pollution could be significantly reduced, and located where it is not as much of a problem (away from city centers).

      And another huge advantage is that the energy source can be *changed* at any time, on a moment's notice, simply by switching power plants. We would no longer be dependent on any single energy source to the extent we are on oil today.

      --
      main(c,r){for(r=32;r;) printf(++c>31?c=!r--,"\n":c<r?" ":~c&r?" `":" #");}
  2. Extraction? by D3 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Sadly not much detail on the extraction process. Good ol' water can store a lot of hydrogen cheaply but getting it out is a PITA. Still, it'd be nice to pull up to a station and just drop a pellet (or bag of pellets) into the car and drive off again. D

    --
    Do really dense people warp space more than others?
  3. What about the economics? by CyricZ · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The main thing to consider is the economics. More to the point, how will the existing oil/energy companies financially benefit from such technology? For if they don't have an interest in this product, it will never come to fruition, regardless of its technical merit.

    --
    Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
  4. Well, wait until Wednesday's report by Red+Flayer · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ""A group of scientists are going to present their breakthrough in hydrogen storage this Wednesday."

    Seeing as neither the article nor the summary give any specifics, why is a press release being passed along as an article?

    Why not wait until they've presented their findings, and then submit an article with more information?

    Whoever submitted this article is probably interested enough in the subject to search for a better article come Thursday or Friday -- and if it gets on /. again, I, for one, will not cry "Dupe".

    --
    "Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
  5. Re:Other measurements by Bluey · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I got 23 miles to the US gallon.

    500 km is about 310 miles.
    50 liters is about 13 US gallons.

    This is comparable to many US sedans. The question is whether the cost of hydrogen processing will be more or less expensive than the cost of refining oil.

  6. I need information by TomorrowPlusX · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The linked article gives very little information. So, while I'm super stoked by this ( it's a really, really important development ) my questions are:

    1) How do they get the hydrogen back out? Do they crush the pellets ( destroying them ), do they heat them, etc.

    2) Are the pellets re-usable? Or do you have to get new ones? And if they *aren't* re-usable, can the carrier material be re-cycled into new pellets?

    My concerns would be that if the material isn't re-usable/re-cyclable we'd end up with vast landfills full of crushed or otherwise useless carrier material, in which case this is hardly a boon.

    On the other hand, if it's recyclable, I can see the oil companies being very happy with this, since you could go to a hydrogen station and dump your used pellets and "refill" with a dump of charged pellets. The station would send the used pellets to a recharging or recycling facility. I say "oil companies" because they've already got quite an infrastucture, and would probably be willing to make the investment into such facilities, since it would maintain their quasi-monopoly on automotive energy distribution.

    Still, the appeal of safe hydrogen storage is great.

    --

    lorem ipsum, dolor sit amet
  7. Re:Not very efficient by Angstroem · · Score: 4, Insightful
    50L to go 500kM is 10kM to the liter. Or about 23MPG. Not good.
    Now compare it to the energy density of Hydrogen compared to gasoline, and you will see what? (Oh, and mind you, we're talking about combustion engines -- not nuclear fusion. Just in case you let yourself be fooled by absolute numbers placed out of context again...)

    Ever used so-called "bio diesel" (RME) instead of mineral-oil based diesel? Spotted a difference in consumption and gave a thought where that difference originated from?

    Btw, hydrogen production is easy. We have plenty of deserts on this planet with hot sunny days, which are just perfect for all-solar powered hydrogen fabs. Just pump (even used) water there.

    The problems were rather storage and transport of H2, which just doesn't like to be kept imprisoned and leaked out of the bottle. If that pellet stuff is working as advertised, that problem is solved.

  8. And missing would be by WindBourne · · Score: 4, Insightful
    1. the efficiency of getting increasingly harder oil from the ground.
    2. The efficiency of refining the oil.
    3. The high cost of maintence of an internal combustion engine.
    4. The very low efficiency of getting the CO2 out of the air.
    --
    I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
  9. Don't forget to add by UnapprovedThought · · Score: 4, Insightful
    1. The gruesome inefficiency of shale and other sources people are turning to
    2. The fuel lost while trucking fuel around (versus generating it locally)
    3. The fuel lost by spills due to the need to store it, truck it, ship it and pipeline it
    4. The impact of environmental degradation and cost of restoration (est. $400 trillion)
    5. The cost of wars and political distortions due to resource conflicts
    6. The fact that the atmosphere is not an infinite CO2 sink and so eventually the efficiency of burning hydrocarbons will degrade noticeably