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."

Comments

I want more.

[PrinceAshitaka]

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.

Re:I want more.

[[Mobius]]

They bind it with aluminum to create a stable hydrogen/aluminum powder.

At least, that's what a local news report mentioned a few days back.

Re:I want more.

[LiquidCoooled]

Make these things into a tablet format and just add water,
Its alka-selter for your car.

Plink-Plink-vroooooooom.

As for the packaging, I would be more worried about the waste of the huge foil tablet wrappers than anything (though, they would be pretty much beanie shaped, so they could be used...)

Re:I want more.

[Stanistani]

There's very little actual information in the article, so I did some digging - here is the recipe:
- - - - - - - - - -
Brunswick Stew

In a 2 gallon pot, over low heat melt ¼ lb of butter then add:
3 cups small diced potatoes
1 cup small diced onion
2 14½ oz. cans of chicken broth
1 lb baked chicken (white and dark)
8-10 oz. smoked pork

Bring to a rolling boil, stirring until potatoes are near done, then add:
1 8½ oz. can early peas
2 14½ oz. cans stewed tomatoes - (chop tomatoes, add liquid to the stew pot)
3 cups prepared onion barbecue sauce
1 16 oz. can of baby lima beans
¼ cup Liquid Smoke
1 14½ oz. can creamed corn
Slow simmer for 2 hours
- - - - - - - - - -
The exciting revelation is that this recipe actually contains more than twice the percentage of hydrogen by weight that is stated in the article. Real progress.

Re:I want more.

[Rei]

Whoah, seriously? They're making alane (stabilized aluminum hydride, AlH3)? Yep, a quick search revealed this to be the case. This would interest the rocketry industry as well, since alane offers great Isp. Let me check those weight numbers. Aluminum's atomic mass is about 27, while hydrogen's is about 1. AlH3 would thus be about 10% hydrogen by weight, so 9% would be essentially saturated, and 6% over half saturated. If correct, this would be incredible.

HOWEVER...

As many people seem to forget on energy and rocketry threads, breakthroughs like this are sadly a dime a dozen. The vast majority never reach the market or reach it in a greatly diminished form. Thus, take press-release style reports of breakthroughs with a heavy grain of salt.

Re:I want more.

[Sockatume]

Of course, the real problem isn't just hydrogen density, the thermodynamics and kinetics of hydrogen uptake and release are important too. You want it to fall off in a nice controlled manner with very little energy: on the order of thermal energies so you can use waste heat from the fuel cell, or a simple heater, to get the hydrogen off. Likewise you want to be able to recharge it with hydrogen quickly and with small energy requirements. Many really great hydrogen storage solutions have run into problems at this end of the problem and need metal catalysts, which increases the weight and cost. Frankly, practical hydrogen fuel vehicles are still a couple of decades off. It's going to be cool, though. At the gas station, you won't have to go to the pumps, you'll just haul your "empties" out and swap them for reloaded cartridges. If you wanted to take extra fuel with you for a cross-country trip, you could just buy some spares. More expensive than jerry cans, but easier to swap in and out. Of course there's no particular reason for Audi's hydrogen cartridges to be same shape as BMW's, which could get "interesting".

Re:I want more.

[drinkypoo]

No, it's a quarter as energy dense, and half as energy efficient (since hydrogen fuel cells + electric enginess have so much better efficiency than ICEs). Still, that's not problematic; doubling the mass of 15 gallons of gasoline is only 48 kg extra, and you don't have to haul around that big hunk of steel we call an internal combustion engine. ;)

But that leaves open the question of regenerative braking. A great deal of the efficiency bonus of EVs and HEVs (PHEV or no) is that they do regenerative braking. You can't effectively use a fuel cell for this without an intermediate storage medium, which currently means batteries (as we've been waiting for supercapacitors to get good price:performance for many years now.)

If you have to add batteries in to store the power from regenerative braking until you can accomplish electrolysis of water, then you have inefficiency and weight to deal with. And you probably won't be able to store it in this solid form, which I suspect won't be a very portable process (although I am willing to be proven wrong.) So you'd lose out on one of the major benefits of using an electric vehicle.

Re:I want more.

[Sockatume]

That works fine for compressed or liquefied hydrogen, and maybe some physisorption methods. Chemically stored hydrogen (which seems to be the most promising) would probably require that the cartridge was regenerated by the manufacturer. I think it'll be like milk deliveries: buy new stuff and return the empty bottles.

Re:I want more.

[cupofjoe]

I agree that it would appear they could be talking about Alane (AlH3), which has a theoretical weight-density of about 10% hydrogen. Yes, 10% is good...but as folks in the hydrogen storage community would be quick to tell you, it's not unusual. For example, Lithium Borohydride (LiBH4) has a theoretical weight-density of almost 18.5% hydrogen! The key is simply to bind hydrogen with light elements in a stable configuration, right?

Wrong. That's not even the tip of the iceberg.

The real problem, as any hydride person would correctly point out, is not "theoretical storage fraction"; rather, it's REVERSIBLE storage fraction. It doesn't really matter, in the long run, if you can store 18%, or even 25% hydrogen by weight in a substance if the following are true:

1. it takes a LOT of energy to put it in (theormodynamically unfavorable hydrogenation reaction)
2. you can only get out a small fraction of what you put in under favorable conditions (non-reversibility)
3. the reaction doesn't move very quickly (unfavorable kinetics)

With these limitations, you face a severe energy penalty for trying to use the material as a hydrogen carrier, mostly because it's one-way. The keys to an inexpensive, efficient solid-state hydrogen storage material combine high storage fraction with a high level of reversibility: why bother using a material if you have to ship it back to the "refinery" when the hydrogen has been depleted? As an example, let me use the typical automotvie application to illustrate. (I know that TFA - which doesn't really say ANYthing, natch - doesn't explicitly state that their "revolutionary" material is for automotive applications, but that's where all the money is coming from these days.)

What I want to do is expose the dehydrogenated powder (it's usually a powder) to hydrogen gas at about 1 atmosphere (~15 psi), remove some heat of reaction (for later use, naturally) and go on with my business. Preferably at a "hydrogen filling station", whatever that ends up looking like. Oh, and refueling shouldn't take more than about 5 minutes. And once the tank is full, I should be able to drive 300 miles without filling up again.

Right now, there is NO material known on Earth that can fulfill these requirements and still be designed into a car.

The astute reader will notice immediately that I'm leaving out what might be the single-most crucial design driver: SAFETY. I don't know if everyone's been keeping up, but alane (and the alanate hydrides in general) are ROCKET FUELS. Personally, I don't want to drive around with 20kg of solid rocket fuel in my car's gas tank. In this case, safety will absolutely drive eventual adoption, even trumping reversible storage fraction.

For example, sodium alanate (NaAlH4) has a theoretical storage fraction of 5.6%, and the reversible fraction is starting to approach 4-5%, which is a very, very good track record. However, when it sees water (which it might, in a car accident) it EXPLODES. Well, deflagrates, but you get the point.

(rant on)

Don't get me wrong. I'm all about solid-state H2 storage, and the "H2 economy" in general, whatever that happens to be. I'm even a "real" materials engineer, working with hydrides. But I'm also all about reality, and hopefully trying to "drop the veil" of proprietary information wherever possible. We're working as a team, people. So, to the press folks at UNB: write better articles, publish some papers, or both.

(rant off)

-joe.

Re:I want more.

[Rei]

You don't need much battery power to do regenerative braking. I could do the math right now to determine how many Wh you'd need (and thus how much mass of batteries), but I'm too lazy.

Oh, fine, you talked me into it. Let's say you want the charge from 110km/h (30.5 m/s) in a 600kg vehicle. That's a kinetic energy of 0.5 * 600 * 30.5^2 = 280 kJ. Let's say that you can recover 250kJ of that. That's ~70 watt hours. A little over 1kg worth of NiMH batteries. Not a big deal, wouldn't you say?

Re:I want more.

[Rei]

Let's see, a quick search reveals a supercapacitor price of $2.50/Wh, so 2.5 * 70 = $175. Hardly breaking the bank there. Cooling, charge controller, etc -- I'm not sure how many different ways that I can point out that we're not exactly dealing with a lot of energy here. I could do the calculations, but why bother? It's obviously not going to cost much. Most of the cabling you need anyways (to run to the engine(s) from the fuel cell. You're just splicing a new power source into that line.

Very light on details.

[Radon360]

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.

Sweet

[inviolet]

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.

Re:Sweet

[RingDev]

"You could even grind the powder fine enough to be a slough, and 'pump' that into your vehicle's fuel tank."

The thought that one of my profs mentioned in a business class was that IF this technology advances enough, that you could literally go to Walmart and buy your fuel off of a shelf. Since at room temperature the stuff is completely stable, is there even a need to have a gas station like environment?

-Rick

Been done

[ArcherB]

Hydrogen is already storable in a solid state, borax. I don't know how feasible it is for wide use. One of the main problems I see is that it would require three tanks in a vehicle; one for the borax, one for water and a third for waste, which is basically soap. From here:

"We developed a dual-bladder fuel tank," says Moore, "to hold the residue created by this process." Refueling pushes the filtrate out of the second bladder and into a collection tank, where it is held until returned for reprocessing. "Unlike gasoline, the tankers won't return to the refinery empty," says Moore, "so the trip back is value-added." And vehicle dynamics are more consistent due to the retention of the residue. There is no dramatic weight variation between "Full" and "empty".

The technology currently is undergoing testing in a Chrysler minivan. "Technically, the vehicle is a hybrid," says Moore, "because the fuel cell recharges a lithium-ion battery pack that provides power for the wheels." Early testing has shown the van to be capable of 0-60 mph in 16 sec., the equivalent of 30 mpg, and of 300 miles on a tank of, well, slush. That tank, by the way, holds 54 gallons of new fuel, up to 40 gallons of residue, and is located between the rear axle and bumper under the van floor.

Ironically, U.S. Borax, Former sponsor of Death Valley Days, owns most of the borax reserves in the world. There are 600 million metric tons of known borax reserves (dry lake beds are the greatest source), and estimates predict the 50 million vehicles currently on the road would use 20 million tons of borax each year, most of which would be recycled.

Re:Been done

[Red Flayer]

It's also possible to store hydrogen in a stable solid matrix using oxygen. There are some limitations on temperature (IIRC, the maximum temperature is something like 273 K) as well as a lot of issues with toxicity. In addition, most of the energy stored in H2 is used up by adding the oxygen to the hydrogen.

There are, however, plenty of advantages to the oxygen-hydrogen storage matrix, the most significant of which is that it can also be used to chill a refeshing potent potable.

Flamewar in 3,2,1.....

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

• Cue Slashdot posts emphasising the uselessness of hydrogen due to the fact that we must put more energy into the process than we get out. Well blow me over. Who'd have thought that thermodynamics would apply to our energy supplies?
  
• Cue replies defending Hydrogen in combitation with wind, solar, hydro, wave power etc.
  
• Cue retort about dead bird, bats, fish, displaced persons all being inferior options to the next generation of nuclear reactors.
  
• Cue kneejerk rant about the danger of nuclear power to the environment and proliferation, along with something topical like Iran.
  
• Cue the guy with that "coal releases more radiactivity than nuclear" line.
  
• Cue exasperated response hyperbole about how oil is running out and civilisation as we know it is doomed and we must do something.(optional "for the children")
  
• Cue comment from guy running a P4 about how our resources would last longer if we cut our usage.
  
• Cue poster with link to obscurse new energy theory/perpetual motion machine site.
  

Danm I love this joint!

Sometime in the future....

[solevita]

"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!"

Weight isn't the problem, it's volume

[Ryan C.]

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.

Re:Weight isn't the problem, it's volume

[Rei]

Not to mention that hydrogen's energy is about 120 MJ/kg, while gasoline has about 45 MJ/kg. Yes, this still translates to only a quarter the energy density of gasoline, but then there's another factor: conversion efficiency. A good hydrogen fuel cell and engine may give you 65% efficiency instead of 30% for a gasoline engine. So, assuming that this outgasses freely, your range per kg will be something like half the energy of gasoline per kilogram of fuel + fuel storage. So, double the mass of your fuel + fuel storage. If your vehicle normally takes 15 gallons of gasoline, then you'd be carrying an extra 48 kilograms (half the weight of one passenger) in fuel + fuel storage. Now you get to subtract: fuel cell/electric engines are generally ligher than ICEs, and you don't need an ICE.

In short, I think the overall vehicle mass would come out to be lower. Volume of the fuel+drivetrain will be probably bigger, but I wouldn't expect it to be bigger by a huge amount (I'm not sure of the volume of current fuel cells; electric engines are pretty small, though, and you get to eliminate all sorts of components (like the alternator)).

So, to clarify...

[Lurker2288]

"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!

How about liquid hydrogen storage?

[cnaumann]

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!

It's not actually solid hydrogen, it's chemical.

[Sockatume]

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).

I present you: The Wheel (TM)

[Lars T.]

Powder metal hydride hydrogen generator

Abstract A system for generating hydrogen gas for use in a fuel cell includes a powder metal hydride source, a water source, a mixing device and a catalytic hydrogen generating chamber. A method of generating hydrogen for use in a fuel cell includes the steps of: providing a source of dry metal hydride fuel; providing a source of steam; providing a mixing/reaction chamber connected to the source of dry metal hydride fuel and to the source of steam; operating the mixing/reaction chamber to transport the dry metal hydride fuel from its source to a byproduct receptacle and feeding steam into the mixing/reaction chamber such that the steam reacts with the dry metal hydride fuel to produce hydrogen gas and a dry metal powder byproduct; removing the dry metal powder byproduct from the mixing/reaction chamber; and extracting the hydrogen gas from the mixing/reaction chamber.

Filed: August 28, 2003; Granted: February 20, 2007

Oh well, it's something else completely, I guess.

If you'd settle for 2% then check this one

[ahfoo]

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.

Pick Any Three

[Kozar_The_Malignant]

>'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.

Hydrogen Burning != Zero Pollution

[fluffy99]

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.

Using hydrogen to power a car?

[hlh_nospam]

Hydrogen makes wonderfully good rocket fuel, because the energy/weight is the most important factor in rocket fuel, outweighing other factors such as cost and safety.

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.

I'll bite.

[horos2c]

Ok, lets just assume that this is a real breakthrough, and that we can safely and cheaply:

        * 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 .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.

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/gasol ine_consumption_country.php
)

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.asp ?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)

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