Nanoparticles Could Make Hydrogen Cheaper Than Gasoline

Roland Piquepaille writes "According to EE Times, a California-based company called QuantumSphere has developed nanoparticles that could make hydrogen cheaper than gasoline. The company says its reactive catalytic nanoparticle coatings can boost the efficiency of electrolysis (the technique that generates hydrogen from water) to 85% today, exceeding the Department of Energy's goal for 2010 by 10%. The company says its process could be improved to reach an efficiency of 96% in a few years. The most interesting part of the story is that the existing gas stations would not need to be modified to distribute hydrogen. With these nanoparticle coatings, car owners could make their own hydrogen, either in their garage or even when driving."

Comments

What's that I smell?

[Harik]

*cough*bullshit*cough*

What's with all the science articles lately that are basically investor scams?

Re:What's that I smell?

[bikerider7]

What's with all the science articles lately that are basically investor scams?

This is a press release, not a science article. The EE Times last year fired most of its reporters, and now just regurgitates company press releases.

Re:What's that I smell?

[KublaiKhan]

Which is a good thing, considering that I like to obey the laws of thermodynamics in my house.

But at any rate, the one thing that I keep wondering about is how this in-car conversion of water to hydrogen will work--as yet, it keeps looking like this is just going to be another electric car implementation or something. Where's the power to crack the water coming from? Onboard batteries? Some other power source?

Re:Need those

[Bartab]

Exactly as likely as you having an unfortunate accident, because you're a crazy conspiracy nutcase.

Not the end of big oil

[rossz]

Everybody giggling about this would mean the end of "Big Oil" forgets that gasoline is only one of many petroleum based products. Plastics are still going to be a huge market, for example. The oil companies still won't like it, as their profits will no doubt go down. On the plus side, the profits for terrorist funders (Saudi Arabia) would go down, too.

"Right in your car..." using WHAT as energy?

[dpbsmith]

The article says "Our nanoparticle-coated electrodes make electrolysers efficient enough to provide hydrogen on demand from a tank of distilled water in your car."

That's a completely baffling statement to me. So baffling as to trigger my BS detector.

Presumably the point of producing it in the car is to avoid the need to store the gaseous hydrogen. But electrolysing hydrogen requires energy--the hydrogen is not a source of energy so much as it is a storage medium for energy. So where would that energy come from?

From a gasoline-powered generator in your car? Or what?

Sounds like a smooth-talking snake-oil salesman who's answer to everything is "yes, we've solved that problem too."

Why can't Exxon/Shell sell hydrogen?

[hackingbear]

No to speak for any of those companies, but if this or other technologies are as good as they claimed to be and if Exxon/Shell/big-oil buy the technology, why would they shelf it in the basement of their lawyer's office? These are just for-profit companies. As such, they don't really care what they sell. If shits can power cars better/cheaper than gasoline, they will sell the shits because they have a competitive advantages compared to others in their business. Why would they pay the Saudi emirates if they can just monopolize the production of energy at home?