New Hydrogen Storage Technique

pwp writes to mention that researchers at the University of New Brunswick are reporting they have found a new method of storing hydrogen gas. The new method is able to condense hydrogen gas into a usable solid under mild conditions. "Hydrogen gas is typically stored under pressure in large metal cylinders, approximately four feet high. These cylinders are heavy and expensive to transport. Since they are under pressure, they also pose a safety hazard. 'We've reached a milestone with our ability to condense hydrogen into a usable solid,' said Dr. McGrady. 'The next step is to produce a safe, compact storage system for the compound that is both lightweight and affordable.' The research is expected to produce reversible hydrogen storage materials that can be processed into a powder for use in limitless commercial applications."

Very light on details.

[Radon360]

This article reads like the typical press release aimed to stir up grant money and venture capitalists. Too bad that UNB doesn't have a stock ticker symbol.

Somebody feel free to submit the details about this when they're released.

Denmark already did this?

[KlaymenDK]

It's hard to say since the article is so light on the details, but DTU --the Danish equivalent of MIT-- demonstrated hydrogen in pellet form something like two years ago.

One would do something I do not recall (perhaps pour water or an electric current over them?) to release the hydrogen, but otherwise they were inert. (I don't know what happened to that technology since, however.)

Just what is a Usable Solid?

[Nom du Keyboard]

Just what is a Usable Solid? To me it's one that's easily manufactured, non-polluting, cheap, safe to transport, and leaves no residue behind.

If there is a residue, then it's a new Storage Container, and not a Usable Solid. If that's the case, then it needs to be easily rechargeable/refillable, quickly rechargeable/refillable, cheaply rechargeable/refillable, safely rechargeable/refillable/transportable, and provide good energy density for its overall weight and volume.

Does this system meet all these requirements? Hard to tell.

Correct

[Anonymous Coward]

You're correct. H2 does not have a solid phase anywhere near STP.

The article is just plain wrong, as they are not condensing hydrogen into a solid. In fact, technically, condensation occurs whe you transition from gas to liquid. gas to solid would, of course, be deposition, and liquid to solid would be solidification.

Combine it with oxygen and store the result it in the liquid form. It's safe to transport, easy to pipe around a vehicle or power plant, and gets you somthing like 10% H mass

Press Release vs. Peer Reviewed Article

[divisionbyzero]

Can we have less free advertising (i.e. press releases) and more articles that are actually informative? I know it's asking a lot... but come on, man!

Re:Weight isn't the problem, it's volume

[Rei]

Not to mention that hydrogen's energy is about 120 MJ/kg, while gasoline has about 45 MJ/kg. Yes, this still translates to only a quarter the energy density of gasoline, but then there's another factor: conversion efficiency. A good hydrogen fuel cell and engine may give you 65% efficiency instead of 30% for a gasoline engine. So, assuming that this outgasses freely, your range per kg will be something like half the energy of gasoline per kilogram of fuel + fuel storage. So, double the mass of your fuel + fuel storage. If your vehicle normally takes 15 gallons of gasoline, then you'd be carrying an extra 48 kilograms (half the weight of one passenger) in fuel + fuel storage. Now you get to subtract: fuel cell/electric engines are generally ligher than ICEs, and you don't need an ICE.

In short, I think the overall vehicle mass would come out to be lower. Volume of the fuel+drivetrain will be probably bigger, but I wouldn't expect it to be bigger by a huge amount (I'm not sure of the volume of current fuel cells; electric engines are pretty small, though, and you get to eliminate all sorts of components (like the alternator)).

Re:Sweet

[RingDev]

"You could even grind the powder fine enough to be a slough, and 'pump' that into your vehicle's fuel tank."

The thought that one of my profs mentioned in a business class was that IF this technology advances enough, that you could literally go to Walmart and buy your fuel off of a shelf. Since at room temperature the stuff is completely stable, is there even a need to have a gas station like environment?

-Rick

Pick Any Three

[Kozar_The_Malignant]

>'The next step is to produce a safe, compact storage system for the compound that is both lightweight and affordable.'

You want safe, compact, lightweight, and affordable. You can have any three.

Re:Pick Any Three

[geekoid]

Gasoline is all four.

Why haul anything?

[jd]

If the manufacturers standardize on a cartridge format, then it could be automatically removed and a fresh cartridge inserted. The robotics for such an operation have been more than adequate for about a decade now.

Of course, you are right in questioning how standard these things will get. (Answer: If it will kill a competitor or three, not very)

New chemical for hydrogen storage, 15% hydrogen!

[vuo]

I just realized that there's this really new way to store hydrogen. It contains as much as 15% hydrogen, much more than the article's 9%, and is perfectly suitable for today's automobile motors. It is a clear liquid, boiling at 99 C, and can be easily pumped. It burns cleanly, and is safe to transport. It is available from biological sources. Hydrogen doesn't evaporate off it.

The magic compound is called iso-octane, which contains 85% carbon and 15% hydrogen. If we could only solve the small technological problem of getting the carbon from non-fossil sources, then we're all set!

Hydrogen economy is much like the age-old idea of powering a power plant by the obvious, plugging it into a wall socket. (This reality bite brought to you by your resident industrial chemist.)

Re:I want more.

[Rei]

You don't need much battery power to do regenerative braking. I could do the math right now to determine how many Wh you'd need (and thus how much mass of batteries), but I'm too lazy.

Oh, fine, you talked me into it. Let's say you want the charge from 110km/h (30.5 m/s) in a 600kg vehicle. That's a kinetic energy of 0.5 * 600 * 30.5^2 = 280 kJ. Let's say that you can recover 250kJ of that. That's ~70 watt hours. A little over 1kg worth of NiMH batteries. Not a big deal, wouldn't you say?

Using hydrogen to power a car?

[hlh_nospam]

Hydrogen makes wonderfully good rocket fuel, because the energy/weight is the most important factor in rocket fuel, outweighing other factors such as cost and safety.

Using hydrogen to power a car is insanely stupid.

There is no scenario for the use of hydrogen in a terrestrial vehicle that would not be rendered safer, cheaper, and less polluting by taking whatever source of energy used to manufacture hydrogen and directly applying it to move the car -- skipping the extremely wasteful hydrogen conversion/transport/storage processes. Electrons are much easier to produce, ship, store, and use than hydrogen. There are already LiON battery technologies that promise very rapid charge/discharge cycles with no thermal runaway, and over 9000 complete charge/discharge cycles [altairnano.com]. NiMH and Ni-Zn, while not quite as good in some ways as LiON, are still more viable than using hydrogen, whether by burning in an ICE, or in a fool-cell. And last time I checked, we are much closer to being able to build 50,000,000 EVs than we are to being able to build 50,000 fool-cell vehicles, because lithium (and nickel, and zinc) is far cheaper and more plentiful than platinum, which so far, is the only reasonably (?) effective catalyst for a fool-cell.

Hydrogen will only be the fuel of choice for two groups: Those who have more money than sense, and those who can freely spend other people's money. Those of us that have to spend our own money, and don't have enough to burn, will go for more efficient technologies, such as EV and bio-diesel. Unless we are coerced by the government.

Political Correctness makes lousy science, lousy economics, and even worse public policy.

Re:I want more.

[Rei]

Yes, but the ~100K for LOX is much, much easier to deal with than the near absolute zero that you need for LH. :)

Yes, a hybrid using alane (or even a solid using an oxidizer other than LOX) would be far better than LOX/LH. You get a slight Isp cut, but you get a manyfold increase in fuel density, which reduces your craft mass. Reducing craft mass increases performance and reduces manufacture cost/maintenence. There's long been a debate over which is more important -- high Isp (as in LOX/LH) or high density (as in LOX/Kerosene). Both have their strong and weak points. However, when your Isp is nearly as high as LOX/LH and your density is as good as LOX/Kerosene, that kind of ends the debate right there. :)