Microreactors Change Propane into Hydrogen

Roland Piquepaille writes "Microreactors have already been used for on-site reforming of fuels, such as methanol or propane, to produce hydrogen to be used in fuel cells. Now, researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) have designed very efficient ceramic microreactors to do this task. The scientists say that their microreactors are much better than other fuel reformer systems. They are now trying to reform gasoline and diesel, which are more widely distributed than propane. Does this mean that one day we'll be able to go to a gas station to refill the fuel cells powering our laptops? Probably not before a while, but read more for additional details, references and a picture of a prototype."

Comments

huh?

[Dan Guisinger]

I don't get it..... ......aren't there better things we should be trying to turn into hyrdogen?
I mean.... propane, oil, gasoline, thats great......but half the problem is we are running out. And what happens to all the carbon when its converted to hydrogen? (I admit I didn't read). I would hope its not released as an emission of sorts, that wouldn't help what so ever....other than localizing a problem possibly making containment easier.

Re:huh?

[CoderDog]

Suckered by a Roland Piquepaille submission, Again. Hate it when that happens.

They mentioned that the reactor operates at high temps (800 C. to 1000 C.) to avoid carbon (as soot) fouling of the reactor. So, they've either got an ash bin somewhere downstream or they sprew CO and/or CO2. The other boast was that they'd reformed ammonia (at 1000 C.) to produce hydrogen. No word on whether the waste was gaseous nitrogen or nitrous oxides. Hope it's not nitrous oxides. Denver's "brown cloud" used to be mainly nitrous oxides from car exhaust.

This looks like a really cool trick, but otherwise nearly worthless at this late date. I really don't want to run down to the gas station every couple of hours for a hydrogen recharge, and really, really dont't want a long warmup 800 C. appliance running in the house -- unless it also cooks 60 second pizzas. Additionally, the world's running out of their feedstock. If they had something that took plastic packaging, waste paper, saw dust, or the neighbors yapping little pets as an input and efficiently produced butane, propane, diesel or gasline, along with nicely segregated saleable piles of sulfur and laser printer toner, that'd be a newsworthy dazzling thing.

If it also made nutritious little green biscuits (maybe call 'em Soylent Green?) that'd be extra special.

Re:huh?

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

aren't there better things we should be trying to turn into hyrdogen?

Right now, today, we only have one, maybe two, wide-scale energy distribution systems. Its gasoline. If we can easily and cheaply make a gas station do double-duty as a hydrogran station that solves the short term problem of how to fill-up hydrogren powered cars. The expectation is that over time, as hydrogren powered cards theoretically become widespread, we can slowly build up alternate distribution system(s) to support them as we wean off of gasoline.

PS - the other "maybe" distribution system is electricity. I say "maybe" because we do a power grid, but we don't have metered charging stations nor do we have the capacity to support wide-scale automobile recharging. Yet. Start putting some nukes online and we might get there pretty quick.

How much better is it?

[dbIII]

One thing I would like to hear is if you really get much better results with this and hydrogen-oxygen fuel cells than you would get with a propane-oxgen fuel cell. If it is a much larger difference than you get with reforming the propane then it is interesting - propane is easier to store and ship around.

That's a cool thing, but what about

[KalElOfJorEl]

Turning hydrogen into fossil fuels. Now THAT would be something to see.

vaporware

[macadamia_harold]

Microreactors Change Propane into Hydrogen

Finally, a good example of vaporware. And not in the Duke Nukem Forever sense of the word.

Whatevs

[Y-Crate]

This shit is nothing. I'm putting the finishing touches on a process that will turn diamonds into multifunction printer paper.

Information on fuel cell vehicles

[loshwomp]

Here's a paper from AC Propulsion that explains why fuel cells are the technology that never will be. The smart money got out of fuel cells years ago.

Perspectives on Fuel Cell and Battery Electric Vehicles

Fuel cells are not the answer!

[bradbury]

People in developed countries have largely been duped by the so called "green" arguments that hydrogen (and indirectly fuel cells) are the solution to their energy problems. This is because you combine hydrogen with oxygen and get nonpolluting water (thus no CO2 and no CO). If done in a fuel cell the secondary reactions with N2 are avoided and thus no NO. This means no pollution. But existing automobiles through the proper management of the air fuel mixture (computer controlled fuel injection) and catalytic converters have minimized the NO problem.

You have to separate the problem of the energy carrier from the energy source. All current existing methods to make hydrogen available start with upstream in-the-ground based energy sources (methane, propane, gasoline, etc.) and involve dumping the CO2 that results from extracting the hydrogen into the atmosphere. So long as the hydrocarbon (or carbon) source is coming out of the ground you have only solved the NO pollution problem -- you haven't solved the CO2 part of the global warming problem. I.e. you have not produced a sustainable solution.

The only sustainable solutions involve producing hydrocarbon carriers using carbon extracted from the atmosphere -- that currently means biodiesel, bioethanol or biomethane. Propane, methane and gasoline in our current economy are energy carriers produced using solar energy harvested in ancient times. Until one switches to an economy based on energy harvested or created in real time one has an unsustainable reality. That means one has to be harvesting solar energy (incident visible or IR energy, wind or hydroelectric) or nuclear energy (in the long term using breeder reactors or fusion). The bio-carrier sources are inefficient (harvesting 1-2% of incident solar energy) but there is a large installed infrastructure designed to produce them. As whole genome engineering and/or mass production of inexpensive photovoltaic cells increase the solar energy harvesting efficiencies it will become completely feasible to migrate from a "steal from the past" to a "harvest the present" sustainable economic framework. It would help if people could keep this straight in their minds (and if people in leadership and press positions would not mislead or misdirect where the emphasis should be placed).

So I agree with comments that better reformers are not particularly worthy of attention. A more efficient catalytic system for splitting water (compared with photosynthetic efficiencies) would be worth getting excited about.

Of course I'm waiting for the day when our fusion reactors are powering the breeding of Gd-148 which in turn is used to power the nanorobots and/or replicators which will sustain our economy. But we are probably a several decades away from that at this time.

Re:Merely a slight improvement to existing technol

[el_womble]

Now look at what you've written and tell me where the inefficiency is.

I'll agree that using corn to make ethanol is brain dead, but thats got more to do with voters in Iowa than it does about saving the environment. Sugar cane and sugar beet do a much better job and with a net gain in energy - even when using diesl machinary. But if you do grow corn for transportation energy it is possible, and with zero fossile fuel consumption - its called manpower. The Greek and Roman Empires ran off it, most of South America, India, China and Africa still do. So where is the inefficiency. Is it in the use of corn, the use of ethanol or the use of diesel guzzling mechinary.

I'm not going to tell you that working a corn field using ox/shire horse and man power is fun and good, honest work. Its not. But using fossil fuels to replace man power is a stop gap. It might mean that the US is able to compete with northern Africa or Asia for corn, but at some point, unless we figure out a way to replace the internal combustion engine, we will have to force the poor in to peasantry again - I guess we might get away with communism for a couple of years - that tends to take the edge off being a slave.

Then there is the other statement: "to fill up an SUV it takes enough ethanol to feed a family for a year" I'm not sure if thats entirely true, but I suspect its not that far off. Now is it the ethanol that is inefficient or the SUV?

The energy in gas, doesn't just appear, it had to be stored at some point so the surely the issue is that the SUV eats more in a week than your family eats in a year, be it fossil fuel or corn.

Lets look at some other options. Smaller EU cars like the Smart or Japanese minis like the Yaris get twice as much bang per gallon. 125cc four stroke motorbikes make Smart cars look like SUVs (two strokes are as bad as diesels for pollution). A 500cc bike will eat up american highways, carry a passenger and enough luggage for communting. They're faster than 90% of cars and still get over 50 mpg. Oh, and they're fun. If you can swap to a bike for your commute and all the single passenger journeys you'll actually save money, time and the environment. Better yet, fuel cell motorbikes are starting to be produced in the UK albeit with a very young technology (they kind of remind me space age Indians... you can see that they have the potential for greatness).

Then there is the use of horse. They sure eat a lot of grain, but is it anywhere near as much as an SUV? Sure you've got long highways to deal with, but America was forged with the horse. It can be so again, although I'd be suprised if it could stay a federation. Fedral government needs good communication to survive. Even was spilt into many kingdoms before the Romans came along and gave us roads (oh and Alfred the Great kicking some danish arse didn't hurt either).

Or perhaps the real answer is bread power. One loaf of bread contains enough energy to propel a bicycle for over a hundred miles. If you want to do a direct comparison, you could even run the bike of ethanol (although most civilized nations have rules about drink driving).

Like I said, I agree there are better options than ethanol from corn for powering an SUV. But you I think the real question is, is there a right way to power an SUV?