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Diamonds Are a Fuel Cell's Best Friend
Roland Piquepaille writes "Researchers at UC Davis have used nanocrystals made of diamond-like cubic zirconia to develop cooler fuel cells. Even if hydrogen fuel cells have been touted as clean energy sources, current fuel cells have to run at high temperatures of up to 1,000 C. This new technology will allow fuel cells to run at much lower temperatures, between 50 and 100 C. Obviously, this could lead to a widespread use of fuel cells, which could become a realistic alternative power source for vehicles. The researchers have applied for a patent for their technology, but don't tell when fuel cells based on their work are about to appear."
Now my girlfriend will be begging for a new car in stead of a ring, thnx alot..
Look to DeBeers to rush in and kill this technology. God forbid we have a car that has a CZ solution when only a real diamond can cool forever.
Now when people break into my car they wont be after my stereo, but my fuel tank. :)
Time to buy stocks in man made diamonds.
...when she finds out you duped her with a cubic zirconia. You better hope theres no free hydrogen around when she finds out.
I guess the most significant problem with fuel cells was that they just weren't cool enough... this should improve their "oooh" factor. ;-)
As apparently no one bothered to read even the summary, let me be the first to say there is NO DIAMOND in this solution, real or artificial...It's cubic zirconium, which is a sparkly gem that is often used to simulate diamond, but has neither diamond's chemical makeup, nor its hardness.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Time to order a new Dodge Hindenburg.
Nowhere in TFA were diamonds mentioned. As numerous posts have already pointed out, cubic zirconia is not diamond-like, it's a cheap diamond substitute. The properties of diamonds have nothing to do with the technology in this article. So why was that added to the summary of an article that doesn't mention it?!?
While we want fuel cells for transportation purposes to run at low temperatures, it is not obvious that this is appropriate for fixed-point fuel cells. Low temperature fuel cells can handle hydrogen, but I am unaware of them being able to handle hydrocarbon fuels at reasonable loadings. Typically you need temperatures of a few hundred degrees C to enable the molecular reforming for handling of hydrocarbons. This is reasonable for fixed point systems which can be kept at temperature. The higher temperature also allows the use of lower cost catalysts.
1. Diamond? WTF is diamond doing in the title? Cubic zirconia's nothing like diamond unless you believe the ads of people trying to sell you rings with CZ's in them. (And if you've played with gemstones, you might be able to spot those with your bare eyes: they have a 10% different index of refraction of light.
2. Zirconia has been used for a fuel cell 'catalyst' for a while. Here's a reference to a two-year-old paper about a related fuel cell system.
3. I say 'catalyst' in the above, because zirconia's only sort of a catalyst. While the zirconia remains more or less zirconia, it's not just offering a surface for reaction chemistry: it's actually exchanging oxygen with the reactants during the reaction.
4. Still, it's interesting and weird that the electrical potential is being transferred by protons, rather than electrons (as per TFA.) I'm not familiar with that, just with holes and electrons, so that bears more reading.
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
To my knowledge, there are already LTFC (Low-temperature fuel cells), like PEM, which are already working for years in 50-100 deg C range, but the problem is keeping them below the 100 degrees.
Two years ago, Georgia Tech has announced, that they were capable of pushing it up to 120 deg (source)
and last year, Volkswagen announced the development of a fuel cell working at 160 deg (source).
"Between strong and weak, between rich and poor [...], it is freedom which oppresses and the law which sets free"
"So if we put aside the spectacularly improbable prospect of fueling our planet with extraterrestrial hydrogen imports, the only way to get free hydrogen on Earth is to make it. The trouble is that making hydrogen requires more energy than the hydrogen so produced can provide. Hydrogen, therefore, is not a source of energy. It simply is a carrier of energy. And it is, as we shall see, an extremely poor one.
The spokesmen for the hydrogen hoax claim that hydrogen will be manufactured from water via electrolysis. It is certainly possible to make hydrogen this way, but it is very expensive--so much so, that only four percent of all hydrogen currently produced in the United States is produced in this manner. The rest is made by breaking down hydrocarbons, through processes like pyrolysis of natural gas or steam reforming of coal.
Neither type of hydrogen is even remotely economical as fuel. The wholesale cost of commercial grade liquid hydrogen (made the cheap way, from hydrocarbons) shipped to large customers in the United States is about $6 per kilogram. High purity hydrogen made from electrolysis for scientific applications costs considerably more. Dispensed in compressed gas cylinders to retail customers, the current price of commercial grade hydrogen is about $100 per kilogram. For comparison, a kilogram of hydrogen contains about the same amount of energy as a gallon of gasoline. This means that even if hydrogen cars were available and hydrogen stations existed to fuel them, no one with the power to choose otherwise would ever buy such vehicles. This fact alone makes the hydrogen economy a non-starter in a free society."
Insert Generic Sig Here:
Slashdot is a meta-news meta-blog site so article summaries are like a game of telephone. A scientist publishes a paper, it is boiled-down for a journalist, the journalist distills that into an article, a blogger summarizes the article, and the article is summarized to Slashdot. Net result: "I found a way to fabricate ziconium oxide at 15nm" becomes "Fuel cells can now become widespread, thanks to diamonds!"
CZ is an insulator, so the reaction may not be any less wasteful; the CZ could just be keeping the temperatures down.
The real benefits here seem to be durability, and safety. At 1/10th the heat, your components will take substantially less wear. And safety? Far far better to be hit with a jet of 50-100C gas from a ruptured cell, than to be hit with a 1,000C jet of gas from a ruptured fuel cell...1000c is about where silicon melts, so I'd rather be hit with something the temp of boiling water than to be a pile of ash standing in a little circle of black glass.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
1. No one is saying hydrogen is a fuel. The idea is that you manufacture hydrogen using non-CO2 emmiting technology (nuclear, solar, wind, "clean coal" if that isn't just pure hype), and the hydrogen is essentially a "battery" (for lack of a better term) that isn't totally destructive to the enviornment like current batteries.
2. Unless you plan you coat your fuel tank with powdered aluminum and iron oxide, and then connect that to some sort of static electricity igniter, you aren't going to have a hindenburg style disaster. I mean, geez, you know that cars are full of highly flamable liquids, right now, right? It is kind of like last century when some people chose to stick with gas lighting in their homes because they thought electricity might be a fire hazard.
CZO (Actually Zirconium-Yttrium-Oxide) is only similar in appearance to diamond. In all other respects it is completely different.
The most important difference is that diamond does burn in oxygen while CZO is an excellent oxygen conductor (yes, a crystal that conducts ions by a hole transport mechanism). This is also the effect that is used in fuel cells. There is really no relation to diamonds. Pure popular BS-science.
First, it's a Roland the Plogger story, so it's probably wrong.
Second, it's another one of those "we made some minor advance in materials science on a laboratory scale and this will change the world Real Soon Now" stories. It's too early to be making claims like that. All they have is a new material that might be good for something. Maybe.
Third, it's one of those surface chemistry/crystal chemistry as "nanotechnology" stories. "Nanotechnology" has turned into a buzzword for getting funding for surface chemistry work.
1) Patent alternative energy for cars 2) ??? No wait, sell patent to big oil 3) Profit
God spoke to me.
Cubic Zirconia! You know you are getting a pimped out ride when even your fuel cell has bling!
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
... and this is contradictory how exactly? Just because it's hot does not mean it is inefficient. Indeed, high-temperature FCs have the highest efficiencies, ranging up to 70% with combined cycles.
They already do. Have been for decades. See PEM fuel cells. The point is that there are bunches of possible FC designs around, TFA probably meant the SOFCs, the only ones to reach 1000 degrees.
As a fuel-cell researcher (yes I have a damn PhD in the field) I am very skeptical of anything surfacing on news releases and containing the "patent" word—It just makes my bullshit detector go crazy.
This technology is still very experimental, there is no working prototype, and if I had a penny for every new fuel-cell design that appeared any year I would have Bill Gates cleaning my toilet with his tongue. Besides, the article is quite badly written: it confuses high-temperature SOFC, assumed when the high temperature range is given, with low-temperature FCs that need platinum, which SOFCs do not need at all. It's like confusing an internal-combustion engine with a steam engine.
I am not saying it is complete vaporware, but it certainly seems overblown. People find new ways to design FCs and their components all the time.
Victims of 9/11: <3000. Traffic in the US: >30,000/y
..And of course, the lovely thought of driving around in my car with a nice tank of hydrogen fueling me, knowing that I'm just a wreck away from a hindenburg style disaster. "Most deaths were not caused directly by the fire but were from jumping from the burning ship. Those passengers who rode the ship on its descent to the ground survived. Some deaths of crew members occurred because they wanted to save people on board the ship."reference http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LZ_129_Hindenburg
"The Nature of Hydrogen:
* Hydrogen is less flammable than gasoline.
* Hydrogen disperses quickly.
* Hydrogen is non-toxic.
* Hydrogen combustion produces only water.
* Hydrogen can be stored safely. Tanks currently in use
reference http://www.hydrogennow.org/Facts/Safety-1.htm
Both websites refer to the causes of the Hindenburg disaster, pinning the blame on the blimp material for the largest part of the fault.
The Hindenburg really wasn't a hydrogen disaster, it was an airship disaster that happened to also involve hydrogen.
Fuel Cells are not Carnot limited because they are not heat engines. Carnot limits apply to engines that compress and decompress a gas using heat. Fuel cells are based on electrochemistry and suffer no such restriction.
Hydrogren, with its monoproton nucleus, reminds me of the aristocratic monarchy and reeks of feudalism. Politically, I am unable to support anything that does not conform to my ideals of economic freedom and democracy. Down with Hydrogen! Up with Ununoctium!
As someone who works in the fuel cell industry (an who works with hydrogen on a daily basis), I can unequivocally say I'd rather use hydrogen than gasoline as a fuel.
Your scenario of the fuel tank "blowing" presumably refers to a mechanical rupture. Either fuel would quickly escape from the tank and potentially form an explosive mixture with air. Because gasoline vapor is more dense than air, the explosive air/gasoline mixture tends to hug the ground and stay near the source of the vapor (i.e. the liquid gasoline remaining in the tank or on the ground). A spark would ignite the explosive mixture and create heat which would quickly vaporize (and ignite) the rest of the gasoline.
Hydrogen is the least dense of all elements, so a potentially explosive mixture rises away from the source (ruptured tank). Also, hydrogen disperses exceptionally rapidly in air (almost 600% more quickly than gasoline vapor), which allows an explosive mixture to quickly disperse and dilute below the lower explosive limit of 4% in air.
Finally, the energy density of hydrogen is much less than that of gasoline. That's a great advantage from a safety standpoint. Fuel cells are extremely efficient (much more so than combustion engines); that's how they are able to overcome this energy-density "deficiency" with respect to hydrocarbon fuels.
So, what about people who drive cars running on compressed natural gas? (you know, the ones that have the sticker with a diamond with 'CNG' in it) People eventually get over their distrust for these things and use them. There's plenty of them, just look around you. Aren't you afraid of having an accident with one of those?
Have EVDO, will travel.
IIRC the clean coal initiative in some circles relates to the gassified coal process which for a centralized power plant means that it is quite possible to sequester the carbon emmissions, as well as others like sulfur. They even built a prototype in fla (they being a fla power company) as proof of concept. It irks me that every time I read about gassified coal lately it is in relation to a diesel fuel to be used in cars . . . a complete mis-use of the technology. Why is it that almost every energy technology being developed is immediately applied to the auto even when most if not all of them are most appropriate for large scale power generation? For the time being I feel like we're better off keeping the car on gas and replacing our old coal power plant with newer coal and other "green" and renewable technologies. Once that is switched than the electric car becomes a no-brainer.
"Diamonds. She'll pretty much have to."
You don't understand people. Make something cheap, it simply gets used more. If gas dropped in price tomorrow to half it's current value, in a few years you'd be lucky if cars were getting 15mpg. People literally consume until it hurts.
Ok, imagine a new power source appears. Very cheap, very efficient. GM and Ford switch their engines to use it. What happens to the price of gas? It drops until it's as cheap or cheaper than the new source and as i said, car engines will get bigger, more powerful and thirstier to compensate. No conspiracy necessary, just producers giving people what they want.
Also. Hydrogen fuel cells are a red herring. Ask someone where the hydrogen is coming from, and how efficient the production is. Never mind the problems of distribution and storage.
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