Enzymes Make Electricity From Jet Fuel Without Ignition

An anonymous reader writes University of Utah engineers say they've developed the first room-temperature fuel cell that uses enzymes to help jet fuel produce electricity without needing to ignite the fuel. These new fuel cells can be used to power portable electronics, off-grid power and sensors. A study of the new cells appears online today in the American Chemical Society journal ACS Catalysis. "The major advance in this research is the ability to use Jet Propellant-8 directly in a fuel cell without having to remove sulfur impurities or operate at very high temperature," says the study's senior author. "This work shows that JP-8 and probably others can be used as fuels for low-temperature fuel cells with the right catalysts."

Comments

Efficiency

[Argos]

Important question: efficiency?

Re:Efficiency

[tulcod]

That is not how fundamental engineering works.

What do you think the first solid-state transistor looked like? A neat P-N junction on a silicon wafer, produced by one of those fancy ASML fab machines in Korea? Do you think the first solid-state transistor was capable of speeds anything like what we expect today? Do you think it was "efficient" for any meaning of that word?

The first solid-state transistor was a piece of plastic jammed into a block of germanium. It was dirty, crooked, difficult to make, and generally a pain in the ass.

But it was a proof of concept. It took a lot of additional engineering to make it usable in actual electronics. And then a lot more to make it smaller. And then a lot more to make it scalable. And then years and years and years and years of research brought us to what we know today as a transistor.

But the first transistor was just an impractical oversized proof of concept.

The research in this article is important. It shows that what was always theoretically an option is actually possible in practice. Scalability, efficiency, effort to produce - none of that matters at this stage. Obviously that would all be interesting next steps, but this shows that the principle works. And that is damn interesting.

Re:Oh goody goody

[Required Snark]

Are you whining just to whine, or is your brain actually the size of a walnut?

The sponsor is the US military. They have standardized on JP-8

Apart from powering aircraft, JP-8 is used as a fuel for heaters, stoves, tanks, by the U.S. military and its NATO allies as a replacement for diesel fuel in the engines of nearly all tactical ground vehicles and electrical generators, and as a coolant in engines and some other aircraft components. The use of a single fuel greatly simplifies logistics.

By the way, the original post was wrong when it said JP-7. That's a specialty fuel used by the SR-71 and hypersonic X-51 Waverider. The research was done using JP-8.

From a logistics point of view, having a fuel cell that uses the same stuff you use in aircraft, tanks, and trucks is a big win. A fuel cell that is a drop in replacement for existing generators that use JP-8 would be a big deal. That;s why the military is interested.