Big Advance In Hydrogen Production Could Change Alternative Energy Landscape

An anonymous reader writes "Researchers at Virginia Tech say they've had a genuine breakthrough in alternative energy production that could shake up the world's energy structure. Specifically, they've hit on a way to derive large amounts of hydrogen from any plant source. The method uses renewable natural resources, releases almost no greenhouse gasses, and needs no costly or heavy metals. The key is using xylose, the most abundant simple plant sugar, to produce a large quantity of hydrogen that previously was attainable only in theory."

Comments

Not a replacement yet

[tech.kyle]

At least for use in cars, I believe there's still the problem of storing enough of that hydrogen to get any decent range. Nice to hear we're making progress though. Yay humanity!

Re:Not a replacement yet

[h4rr4r]

You could take that H2 and combine it with some carbon and some oxygen. I believe these new fuels are called hydrocarbons. My understanding is that these revolutionary molecules have a high energy density and combusting them should be a reasonable way to use it to power vehicles.

Re:Not a replacement yet

[chill]

It is my understanding that they require platinum series metals.

Sounds like a couple of women I've dated.

Re:Not a replacement yet

[polar red]

converting plant matter into electricity or hydrogen wouldn't be efficient : photosynthesis converts 3-6% of solar energy and converting this chemical energy into hydrogen and theninto electricity won't improve on this; while a decent solar panel reaches at least 10% (more like 14-19%), into electricity.

Re:Not a replacement yet

[h4rr4r]

Yes, but the amounts required are quite different, or have been so far. Has that been fixed yet?

Re:Not a replacement yet

[Gabrill]

The goal is energy storage and mobility. Stored hydrogen is much more efficient than a solar panel at night or under ground, for example.

Re:Not a replacement yet

[kenaaker]

It's called a Sabatier reaction. It is the reaction of hydrogen and carbon dioxide, under pressure, at 300-400 C, in the presence of a nickel catalyst to produce methane and water. The methane can be transported in the existing natural gas pipeline system or used by a reforming fuel cell. The methane can also be used in one of the variations of the Fischer-Tropsch reactions to make liquid fuels.

Re:Not a replacement yet

[Gr8Apes]

Solar panels are now close to 40%.

What you overlook is that this process uses biomass (ie, waste plant matter) to produce H2 in a process with 100% energy gain (the energy out is more than the energy in) not to mention that the energy put in could be waste heat, resulting in essentially free H2. H2 can be used in portable capacities, such as cars. Solar cannot fulfill these particular needs, although it could be used to create H2, at a much lower level of efficiency.

Re:Not a replacement yet

[bluefoxlucid]

You know how I can tell you've never tried to store and transport hydrogen without loss?

It's your lack of esoteric materials and liquid helium coolant tanks.

Re:Not a replacement yet

[bluefoxlucid]

Top-tier solar panels are now close to 19.2%. Solar collectors using polished metal parabolic reflectors concentrating sunlight onto sterling engines are close to 40% (38% actually).

Re:Not a replacement yet

[ShanghaiBill]

converting plant matter into electricity or hydrogen wouldn't be efficient : photosynthesis converts 3-6% of solar energy

It is not efficient in terms of watts/m^2, but the more important metric is watts/$. A square meter PV panel costs hundreds of dollars. A square meter of corn, sugar cane, or switchgrass costs less than one dollar.

Re:Not a replacement yet

[Bengie]

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-11-22/boeing-to-enter-solar-power-market-with-high-efficiency-cells-in-january.html

Boeing Co., the world’s largest aerospace company, plans to deliver its first commercial scale high-efficiency solar-power cells for Earth-based electricity production in January.

The concentrating photovoltaic cells, developed by Boeing’s Spectrolab unit for satellites and the International Space Station, can convert as much as 39.2 percent of sunlight into electricity, Chicago-based Boeing said today in a statement.

Never said it would be cheap.

Re:Not a replacement yet

[bluefoxlucid]

Holy shit that's a lot of technical problems. If the tank isn't kept ultra-cold (i.e. it's hot outside) it explodes. As you burn hydrogen, pressure drops, the hydrogen in the tank cools the metal ridiculously. And what's with this mass/volume of storage? That's good if you need transport, but not necessarily efficient to produce--gasoline could be 20 times as efficient and it would be 100% useless in space versus 2% efficient hydrogen. How do they compare?

Storing and transporting hydrogen is just too friggin' complex for econoboxes.

Re:Not a replacement yet

[Solandri]

converting plant matter into electricity or hydrogen wouldn't be efficient : photosynthesis converts 3-6% of solar energy and converting this chemical energy into hydrogen and theninto electricity won't improve on this; while a decent solar panel reaches at least 10% (more like 14-19%), into electricity.

True in terms of conversion efficiency. But once you look at cost efficiency, the balance flips the other way. You can cover the entire planet in plants for less than the cost of a single solar panel, because plants grow and spread by themselves.

In fact there's millions of tons of plant matter we already gather (weeds and unused portions of food crops like corn stalks) which we currently burn or bury. All that could be converted into hydrogen essentially for free via a process like this. In that case the conversion efficiency becomes meaningless because the opportunity cost is negative: Right now it costs you to get rid of the waste plant matter. If you convert it into hydrogen instead, that means you get both the benefit of the hydrogen as a fuel and you don't have to pay to dispose of the plant matter.

Re:Not a replacement yet

[myth24601]

It is always a good thing to have some earth between your solar panels and the sun when it is night time.

Re:Not a replacement yet

[DrHeasley]

Moving energy around in trucks is wasteful and slow compared to moving it through the already established electrical grid. The only reasons we stay with liquid fuels are that battery and charging technology doesn't yet supply the needed mileage range and quick recharge rate. And to keep oil companies and gas stations in business.

Re:How is this a win?

[Coreigh]

The majority of input energy would be solar, growing the plants. the machinery used to harvest and transport it wouild run on electriciy and fuel cells just like everything else. It is just a matter of A) generating enough plant matter, and B) getting the infrastructure to critical mass to become sel sustaining.

Sure, it sounds far fetched. But hey, you have to start some where some time. Right?

Efficiency more than 100 percent

[Qwertie]

TFA says "Even more appealing, this reaction occurs at low temperatures, generating hydrogen energy that is greater than the chemical energy stored in xylose and the polyphosphate. This results in an energy efficiency of more than 100 percent â" a net energy gain." Truly we will have to reexamine the laws of thermodynamics in light of this discovery!

Re:Meh

[jellomizer]

I am sure big oil would gladly shift to a new technology.
Here is the problem...
Gasoline offers the following advantages. High Energy Density. Can be stored and shipped easily, relativity safe (compared to other that would kill you at the first smell or explode more violently) Doesn't require a high infrastructure to deal with.

Now if we can get Hydrogen cheap and fuel cells cheap enough to make affordable cars that people will buy. I can see the big oil companies starting to shift to the hydrogen market. They already have ways of shipping, and retailers for their product. They will just switch products.

Hydrogen is valuable NOT as a fuel source

[Billy the Mountain]

While hydrogen can be used as a fuel, it makes more sense for it to be used in ammonia production. The #2 most-produced chemical is ammonia and it is most commonly produced using natural gas which produces CO2 as a by-product.

Ultimately, the true test of this new process is how do the costs compare to steam-reforming of natural gas into hyrdogen?

factor in the plant mass

[Chirs]

There is energy in the plant mass. The full equation is

plant mass + input energy = output hydrogen energy + waste plant mass

Entropy is still preserved in the overall system.

Beauty of a Hydrogen economy

[ElitistWhiner]

A Hydrogen economy STOPS green house gas emission from transportation, litters our roadways with H2O instead of oil and disrupts power in the Middle East.

SO...

What are we waiting for? We could extract our asses out of the deserts of the world with simple plant processing now

Re:Meh

[fustakrakich]

Doesn't require a high infrastructure to deal with.

You ever seen a refinery? The infrastructure for gas and food is actually very fragile. We're pretty lucky that everybody gets along so well to make it work.