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

Wow. . .who wrote this?

[ookabooka]

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.

Ok, so gas stations don't need to be modified because they will be deprecated? Thats the worst (or best. . . largest in magnitude) spin I've seen in a while. Might as well just omit anything about gas stations or just say "technology would be independent of current gasoline infrastructure".

Also, I don't see anything that mentions storage. To my knowledge, storage of hydrogen is a tricky business. What good is making fuel at home if it'll only last you 10 miles? I'm sure there are plenty of advances in the storage of hydrogen, but lets try to keep the summary relevant to the article. What is described (yes I read TFA) is a way to make metal with loads of surface area, that has applications in electrolyzing water. Also, TFA mentions the other applications of this new technology such as better chemical batteries. Non rechargables that perform 5x better than standard alkaline batteries and NiMH that perform better than current lithium batteries. One could argue that the battery technology application is more important due to the immediate applications, yet it was absent in the summary.

Re:Need those

[teaserX]

Just produce the hydrogen onboard and do away with the shipping all together.

Fixed that for you.