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New Hydrogen Storage Technique
pwp writes to mention that researchers at the University of New Brunswick are reporting they have found a new method of storing hydrogen gas. The new method is able to condense hydrogen gas into a usable solid under mild conditions. "Hydrogen gas is typically stored under pressure in large metal cylinders, approximately four feet high. These cylinders are heavy and expensive to transport. Since they are under pressure, they also pose a safety hazard. 'We've reached a milestone with our ability to condense hydrogen into a usable solid,' said Dr. McGrady. 'The next step is to produce a safe, compact storage system for the compound that is both lightweight and affordable.' The research is expected to produce reversible hydrogen storage materials that can be processed into a powder for use in limitless commercial applications."
This article has absolutly vague information on what research they are doing. Storing hydrogen as a solid, apparetly as a powder? What would be interesting is to see how much energy is lost in the chemical reactions of reacting hydrogen with whatever they react it with and then changing it back into hydrogen gas. I would also like to see how this compares to the energy required to compress hydrogen as it is currently done. This is what will determine this technologies usefulness in reality.
Only nine percent hydrogen by weight is success? How much fuel will it waste in transportation if there is nine times as much "pakaging" material as there is hydrogen. Yes the currently used hydrogen cylinders are heavy, but I do not believe they weigh nine times as much as they can carry.
quis custodiet ipsos custodes
This article reads like the typical press release aimed to stir up grant money and venture capitalists. Too bad that UNB doesn't have a stock ticker symbol.
Somebody feel free to submit the details about this when they're released.
While they do not say directly in the article, the artcile does have hints that thier method of turning hydrogen solid is to react it with something. This will form a powerder at room temperature. The thing is they only have six percent of this powder is hydrogen so there is alot of dead weight to haul around so little H2. Also this method of a reversible reaction will use up energy. It is yet to be seen if this is more or less than the energy required to compress a similar volume of hydrogen.
quis custodiet ipsos custodes
Assuming the energy needed to perform the condensation is not lossy, this technique is going to be da bomb. :)
Haha. But seriously, this is what the "hydrogen economy" needs. You could even grind the powder fine enough to be a slough, and 'pump' that into your vehicle's fuel tank.
When George Bush first proposed hydrogen as the solution to our fossil-fuel habit, everyone mocked him for failing to understand that hydrogen is just a storage medium, rather than an energy source. I suspect he knew that all along... but since most Americans don't know it, he persuaded them to (at least in principle) buy in to the idea.
Once there is enough interest in hydrogen, the "hydrogen economy" will indeed take off (e.g. today's breakthrough), and at that time we will be groping for a way to produce hydrogen in bulk. The optimal way to produce bulk hydrogen is of course a nuclear reactor. And so by this (alas necessarily) indirect route will Americans come to accept ubiquitous nuclear power. And that is exactly what Bush wanted (or at least should have wanted) all along.
FATMOUSE + YOU = FATMOUSE
The research is expected to produce reversible hydrogen storage materials that can be processed into a powder
Just add water for a delicious instant beverage.
Oh, yeah, it's not easy to pad these out to 120 characters.
It's hard to say since the article is so light on the details, but DTU --the Danish equivalent of MIT-- demonstrated hydrogen in pellet form something like two years ago.
One would do something I do not recall (perhaps pour water or an electric current over them?) to release the hydrogen, but otherwise they were inert. (I don't know what happened to that technology since, however.)
"Good news, everyone!"
Solid Hydrogen? I can't wait to heat my house with this stuff. Nothing like a fire made of Hydrogen logs.
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There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
Danm I love this joint!
May the Maths Be with you!
"Well son, throw another hydrogen log on the fire and I'll tell you all about that time me and Will Smith stopped the alien invasion with nothing but a pocket calculator. Those where the days!"
But yes, even 9% is better than curent gas storage, which is much less than 5% hydrogen by weight. The DOE target for 2010 is 6%. And even then you'd be about five times the volume using compressed gas for a given amout of hydrogen.
-Ryan C.
http://meetings.aps.org/Meeting/MAR07/Event/59811
extracted:
Investigation of the Direct Hydrogenation of Aluminum to Alane in Supercritical Fluids
Alane, AlH$_{3}$ has many of the properties that are requisite for materials to be considered viable for onboard hydrogen storage applications. Most notibly, it contains 10.1 wt{\%} hydrogen and undergoes dehydrogenation at appreciable rates at temperatures below 100$^{\circ}$C. However, the very low, $\ge $ 6 kJ/mol, enthalpy of dehydrogenation of AlH$_{3}$ prohibits subsequent re-hydrogenation through standard gas-solid techniques except at very high pressures or very low temperatures. The extremely low solubility of gaseous H$_{2}$ in conventional organic solvents also vitiates a solution-based approach. Re-hydrogenation of Al using a supercritical fluid potentially offers a workable approach since the fluid can act as a solvent, at the same time remaining completely miscible with permanent gases like hydrogen. Recently, it has been found that mixtures of NaH and Al can be hydrogenated to sodium alanate, NaAlH$_{4}$ under modest pressures and temperatures in supercritical fluids. We have now extended these studies to the hydrogenation of Al to AlH$_{3}$. The results of these studies and experimental details will be reported.
(The important question is now the energetic cost of preparing alane by this method, which
impacts the efficiency of using alane-derived hydrogen as a fuel.
If there is a residue, then it's a new Storage Container, and not a Usable Solid. If that's the case, then it needs to be easily rechargeable/refillable, quickly rechargeable/refillable, cheaply rechargeable/refillable, safely rechargeable/refillable/transportable, and provide good energy density for its overall weight and volume.
Does this system meet all these requirements? Hard to tell.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
The tongue-in-cheek summary shortcut post.
And the wiseass respone to same.
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"The next step is to produce a safe, compact storage system for the compound that is both lightweight and affordable."
Oh, so you mean, all we have to do now is figure out a way to store hydrogen that's safe, compact, lightweight, and affordable? Well hell, son, why didn't you say so? Our troubles are over!
Cue Grammar Nazi...Damn I love this joint!
In Soviet Russia, Chuck Norris will still kick your ass.
Can we have less free advertising (i.e. press releases) and more articles that are actually informative? I know it's asking a lot... but come on, man!
Here is an idea: create a chain of about 8 carbon atoms and attach 18 hydrogen atoms to this carbon chain. That is about 16% hydrogen by weight! Not only that, it is an easy to handle liquid at normal temperatures and pressures. Imagine simply pouring a liquid into your car for refueling!
http://www.biofuels.fsnet.co.uk/sustain.htm .0092 ratio... that's uh, less than 1/100th or 100 times as much packing material....
Typically, a 1460 x 230 mm K size industrial gas cylinder weighs 65kg and holds 7.2 cubic metres of hydrogen, which has to be compressed at 175 bar (c. 2500 psi) - a convenient size and weight (same as a 50 litre fuel tank) for one cylinder to fit into a car, but the actual weight of the hydrogen is only 0.6kg.
hmmm... 65kg/.6kg
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
Ye Gods!
... Errr, OK; you mean ICE?
TFA is *very* short on details but, as far as I can determine, they have nothing more than a (slightly) more efficient gas/metal adsorbtion method.
To illustrate *how* short on detail it is, take the quote "The way to do this is to turn hydrogen into a compound -- a solid -- so you can use it when you want, safely, in the amount you want."
Hydrogen aDsorbtion (which means sticking to the surface of, rather than being pulled into the structure of (aBsorbtion) onto metals) has been known about for a very long time. Using these techniques does do away with the classical problems of storing hydrogen cryogenically (cold, volatility and risk of explosion) but for a *huge* cost of energy-density/weight ratio. So much so that it isn't really worth the effort. Even if they have achieved a ten-fold improvement over traditional (titanium) adsorbtion methods, it wouldn't be nearly enough to be viable consumer level energy requirements.
Unsurprisingly it's not the formation of solid dihydrogen as you might expect from the amazingly poorly written press release. Like almost everyone else they're working on chemical hydrogen storage, whereby hydrogen-rich compounds are used to store and release hydrogen gas. The remainder are working on physical dihydrogen storage (carbon nanotubes etc).
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
Oh well, it's something else completely, I guess.
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
- Molecular hydrogen (H2) physically sticking to a porous storage medium, such as a metal organic framework, without chemically reacting.
- Chemically storing atomic hydrogen in a compounds, such as metal hydrides, where it can reversibly react to form H2.
The challenge is trying to do the above reversibly in non-extreme temperature and pressure conditions and in a method that won't break down with hundreds and thousands of empty/full cycles.The reason the weight percent numbers seem small is that H2 has a molecular weight of ~2 AMU and any material with the capacity to adsorb lots of hydrogen or store it chemically is going to be made of much heavier atoms. In this way, mass percentage is deceiving but it is the most common measure of storage capacity. My wild guess is that the 6.5% cutoff is in the ballpark of the energy output to mass ratio of gasoline. Luckily, neither fuel requires the automobile to haul around all the oxygen necessary to for the reactions.
If people aren't happy with single digit weight percentages, they could suggest using a heavier hydrogen isotopes to double or triple the numbers!
Home power has a cool PDF that describes how to create your own metal hydride based system. What's cool about their plans is they use bulk materials direct from the manufacturers and then show you how to prime your own system in a home lab if you're so inclined. I'd love to try it.
Seems I read there was a similar system that is used in one version of the hydrogen powered car prototypes and they say they can get a hundred miles per tank on tanks about the size of a scuba tank.
>'The next step is to produce a safe, compact storage system for the compound that is both lightweight and affordable.'
You want safe, compact, lightweight, and affordable. You can have any three.
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
Of course, you are right in questioning how standard these things will get. (Answer: If it will kill a competitor or three, not very)
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Nothing that new here.
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a r_News/TCC_Drives_A_Hydrogen_Prius.S196.A11951.htm l
Energy Conversion Devices has two stock Prius vehicles modified to run on Hydrogen instead of gasoline tooling around Detroit and LA. The hydorgen is stored as a Nickel Hydride (solid). Right now they can travel about 200 miles on a "tank" of hydrogen.
More info on the web site. http://www.ovonic-hydrogen.com/home/home.htm
It's also been on CNBC.
http://release.theplatform.com/content.select?pid
And the Car Connection. http://www.thecarconnection.com/Auto_News/Green_C
I started laughing when the article stated that burning hydrogen produced zero pollution. Sure, if you live in a pure oxygen environment. Unfortunately, cars have to operate with a supply that's mostly nitrogen and significant portion of the resulting pollution is nitrogen compounds. Besides, the energy density per weight still sucks worse than decent battery technology which really does have zero emissions at the point of use.
I just realized that there's this really new way to store hydrogen. It contains as much as 15% hydrogen, much more than the article's 9%, and is perfectly suitable for today's automobile motors. It is a clear liquid, boiling at 99 C, and can be easily pumped. It burns cleanly, and is safe to transport. It is available from biological sources. Hydrogen doesn't evaporate off it.
The magic compound is called iso-octane, which contains 85% carbon and 15% hydrogen. If we could only solve the small technological problem of getting the carbon from non-fossil sources, then we're all set!
Hydrogen economy is much like the age-old idea of powering a power plant by the obvious, plugging it into a wall socket. (This reality bite brought to you by your resident industrial chemist.)
Using hydrogen to power a car is insanely stupid.
There is no scenario for the use of hydrogen in a terrestrial vehicle that would not be rendered safer, cheaper, and less polluting by taking whatever source of energy used to manufacture hydrogen and directly applying it to move the car -- skipping the extremely wasteful hydrogen conversion/transport/storage processes. Electrons are much easier to produce, ship, store, and use than hydrogen. There are already LiON battery technologies that promise very rapid charge/discharge cycles with no thermal runaway, and over 9000 complete charge/discharge cycles. NiMH and Ni-Zn, while not quite as good in some ways as LiON, are still more viable than using hydrogen, whether by burning in an ICE, or in a fool-cell. And last time I checked, we are much closer to being able to build 50,000,000 EVs than we are to being able to build 50,000 fool-cell vehicles, because lithium (and nickel, and zinc) is far cheaper and more plentiful than platinum, which so far, is the only reasonably (?) effective catalyst for a fool-cell.
Hydrogen will only be the fuel of choice for two groups: Those who have more money than sense, and those who can freely spend other people's money. Those of us that have to spend our own money, and don't have enough to burn, will go for more efficient technologies, such as EV and bio-diesel. Unless we are coerced by the government.
Political Correctness makes lousy science, lousy economics, and even worse public policy.
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Ok, lets just assume that this is a real breakthrough, and that we can safely and cheaply:
.15 kg/L hydrogen * 120 MJ/kg or 5 kwh / liter versus 9.7 kwh /liter for gasoline) and with the extra efficiency boost it IS energy competitive.
l ine_consumption_country.php
p ?form=1) and aluminum production is very energy intensive (I calculate it as being 6 times *higher* - at 30 kilowatt hours /liter - than the hydrogen is meant to store. That becomes 90 kilowatt hours / liter considering that most of the energy used in aluminum production is electric)
* manufacture said compound (AlH3)
* store said compound
* use said compound with high efficiency in fuel vehicles
After all, its volumetric density is fair (I calculate it at
My question is - where are we going to get the aluminum? This would require a MASSIVE production spike in aluminum - to provide a replacement for the ~ 400 million metric tons of gasoline that the US alone uses.
(source: http://www.energy.ca.gov/gasoline/statistics/gaso
)
Right now, the amount of aluminum we produce globally per year is about 20 times lower - 23.8 million metric tons yearly to be exact (source: http://www.world-aluminum.org/stats/formServer.as
So the only realistic way of doing this would be to recycle the aluminum and 'rehydrate it'. And there would be a hefty price premium on the creation of the fuel ($12 / gallon at current aluminum prices, which would probably go up dramatically if this took off)
Overall then this is a mixed bag. The infrastructure costs would be substantial in creating the distribution network for the fuel, both for hydrating and recycling the fuel containers, and the energy cost would be horrific in making the aluminum.
At 30 kilowatt hours / liter, and 700 grams CO2/ kilowatt hour (if the energy making the aluminum was coal), this corresponds to 19000 grams C02 / liter of fuel, versus the 2000 grams CO2 / kilowatt hour that you get by simply burning the gasoline to go! The aluminum had better be VERY recyclable.
I'm skeptical. It'd be cool if it works, but we'll see.
Ed