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

I'm confused

[PatentMagus]

So I can make hydrogen while driving. At an efficiency of perhaps 96%. So, 100 units of energy in resulting in 96 units of energy in the form of hydrogen. Those 96 units then pwoer the car.

Why wouldn't I cut the middle step out and simply use 100% of the energy to make the wheels go round and round?

Article Summary

[kryptKnight]

Here's a two sentence summary for the people who don't read articles:

Instead of using a really good conductor to make the electrodes used for electrolysis, these people propose increasing the electrode's surface area 8,000 times by coating an ordinary steel electrode with butt loads of nanoparticles that are optimized for surface area and conductivity.

That sounds feasible to me.

Re:What's that I smell?

[Intron]

The reason the process works is that the nanoparticles give the electrodes a large surface area. If you don't use distilled water, minerals would quickly clog all of the nano-spaces and destroy the efficiency.

! Perpetual Motion

[skelly33]

There's some criticism as to the notion that hydrogen could be created right on board a moving vehicle represents perpetual motion. It doesn't. Those critics are just jumping to conclusions. The implication is that the coating supposedly improves electrolysis efficiency to such a degree that hydrogen could be created with a small enough on-board system on-demand. With today's elecrolyzers, to make enough hydrogen on-demand to run a vehicle, the hydrogen generation gear would be bigger than the vehicle, so efficiency improvement translates to size reduction which makes this approach plausible. The PEM fuel cell went through similar size reduction before it was ready for passenger vehicle use. Anyway, it means you would have to have a power supply such as a rechargeable battery to run the electrolyzer on. I did not take from the story that they were claiming a system where: 1) water + power in, 2)hydrogen out, 3) hydrogen in, 4) power out, repeat for a water-fueled system. It needs power.

Now, why would you want to do this instead of simply use the battery for electric drive? Well, one could make the argument that converting standard hyrdocarbon fuels from the pump to hydrogen ON the vehicle eliminates the need for fueling infrastructure change which is a MAJOR barrier to the widespread adoption of a "hydrogen economy". With hydrogen on the vehicle it could be used to power a fuel cell for electric drive or some other combustion engine such as BMW's multi-fuel hydrogen car. "Just add power" (solar? plug-in? other?) and if it's all done just right, what you get is more efficient fuel combustion with lower emissions than you would have gotten from burning the gasoline straight. That model I think could be viewed as a "stepping stone" towards conversion much like today's hybrid cars are regarded as a stepping stone towards all electric.

Re:Why can't Exxon/Shell sell hydrogen?

[magarity]

why would they shelf it in the basement of their lawyer's office?
 
The problem is once you buy this widget to make hydrogen to power your car, you don't need to buy anything ever again except some power to run it. Bulk oil/gasoline sales to the power plant has nowhere near the margin of retail sales for cars. What would the drug companies try to do to someone who invented a miracle pill that made people immune to every possible disease and disorder forever?

Re:Need those

[Bryansix]

I don't care if H2 is FREE to make. The general public will never be driving H2 cars around.

You sound so sure so let's look at your statements

There are many reasons BOTH competing H2 technologies can't work. Most of it boils down to safety (driving H2 bombs around town), logistics (how do you ship highly compressed H2 since it can't be pipelined), fuel cells might have good reliability, but if you crack it in a wreck, it's half the cost of the vehicle to replace, the only safe ways to store H2 gas (metal infusion) weigh too much, take 8 hours to refuel, and have less than 200 mile range.

Wow, just wow. You know what else is dangerous to drive around with? Yep, a tank full of gasoline. I have driven a Hydrogen powered card. Have you? The logistics is the simplist to figure out. First off you don't pipe it, you make it at the refuling station from water. Next, if the fuel cell is half the price of the car now so what. It will come down, plus most cars in wrecks nowadays get totaled anyways so big whoop.

We'll have full electric cars, air powered cars, and a full ethanol industry hopping long before they solve the safety, vehicle weight/efficieny/range problems, costs, and other very big negatives surrounding H2.

Like I said I drove a Hydrogen Car. Honda released the FCX Clarity in Southern California. It's on the road already. All the major manufacturers have working prototype vehicles some using Hydroden Hybrid technology.

the ONLY thing H2 has going for it it it burns 100% clean. So do air poewred cars and battery powered cars, and the energy used to fill the tank with all 3 can be just as clean, safer, cheaper, and less of a logistics challenge.

Right but the point of using Hydrogen is for range and Hydrogen will become cheaper. Also, the Hydrogen doesn't burn in a fuel cell.