New Generation of Hydrogen Fuel Cells Powers Up

An anonymous reader writes "A safer and more practical way of storing and releasing hydrogen, discovered by two Arizona State University researchers, could lead to a new type of fuel cell capable of packing 10 times more energy. The key is apparently using the alkaline compound borohydride — 'a 30% solution of borohydride in water actually contains one-third more hydrogen than the same volume of liquid hydrogen.'"

Comments

Chemical info on Borohydride

[xmas2003]

Wiki has a decent write up on NaBH4 for those interested and mentions the applicability to Fuel Cells.

This is still in the research/development phase as per the article "Dr. Gervasio recognises that there are still many steps between his prototype and a competitively priced, off-the-shelf, battery-sized fuel cell. Nevertheless, he believes they could appear in power-hungry devices such as laptops, camcorders, and radios within five years." So until then, I'll be using CnH2n+2 to mow my lawn.

Re:Chemical info on Borohydride

[palapa]

Anhydrous ammonia has a hydrogen density of 0.12 gm/cm^3, compared to liquid hydrogen with a density of 0.07 gm/cm^3. In addition, ammonia is easy to reform for use in a fuel cell. Ammonia is already heavily distributed for agriculture, it volatilizes off as a lighter than air gas, it contains no carbon, and finding leaks is easy! The down side to either hydrogen-boride or ammonia is that they're not energy sources in themselves, but function (like a battery) as a convenient way to store energy.

Re:Huh? Help out an under educated ignorant, pleas

[LotsOfPhil]

Liquid H2 is not very dense at all. It's density is .068 g/mL (compared to water, which is 1 g/mL). When the borohydride is added to water, you get NaBO2 and 4 H2 molecules.

Give in to our nuclear overlords.

[xshader]

It is possible to design nuclear plants to preform electrolysis on the off-hours when the load is low. What does a nuclear power plant do? Boils lots of water. When the load is low, they can run the extra current directly thru the water that was just boiled. Yes, it is not the most efficient power conversion, but we have so much nuclear fuel available why not use it? Sometime in the future we will figure out what to do with the waste. We are a smart race. Worse case we can just launch it into the sun or in a trajectory pointing away from our planet.

Is nuclear that bad? We have known the properties of the splitting atom for decades now... we should have a good understanding of how to utilize this abundant resource. The waste is manageable. Is the waste of a coal plant manageable? Once you spew all that C0_2 and other by-products into the atmosphere there is no (sane) way to recapture it.

Nuclear is our future. Give in to our nuclear overlords.

Re:For the non-fuel cell people.

[bill_kress]

You just described every enegery storage mechanism ever created INCLUDING oil (Oil does not create energy, it simply stores solar energy collected from the sun a while back.).

The act of storing, transporting or using energy in any way involves waste (heat).

Oil & coal happen to be pretty decent storage mechanisms--relatively little waste while in storage, but somewhat difficult to recharge and creating it is quite wasteful.

So, if you are just talking about "Consuming" the energy, hydrogen is much more efficient and clean than oil. If you take into account the production of the energy as well, that's a different story. We'll have to set up some bogs and find some dinasours and wait a while before we can compare.