Can Urine Rescue Hydrogen-Powered Cars?

Posted by timothy on Wednesday July 8, 2009 @06:43AM from the use-every-part-of-the-animal dept.

thecarchik writes with this interesting excerpt: "It takes a lot of energy to split hydrogen out from the other atoms to which it binds, either in natural gas or water. Which means energy analysts are skeptical about the overall energy balance of cars fueled by hydrogen. Ohio University researcher Geraldine Botte has come up with a nickel-based electrode to oxidize (NH2)2CO, otherwise known as urea, the major component of animal urine. Because urea's four hydrogen atoms are less tightly bound to nitrogen than the hydrogen bound to oxygen in water molecules, it takes less energy to break them apart."

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Unless I miss my guess.. by Anonymous Coward · 2009-07-08 09:16 · Score: 3, Interesting

won't this produce large amounts of NO(x) pollutants?
Wait a second by Well-Fed+Troll · 2009-07-08 11:57 · Score: 3, Interesting

Hold on a second. If the energy required to split urea into hydrogen is very small, you've just solved the hydrogen storage problem.

Crack the urea on the fly to hydrogen and combust it down to water. What are the waste products of the electrolysis?