Graphene Surprise Could Help Generate Hydrogen Cheaply and Sustainably (scitechdaily.com) 57
echo123 shares a report from SciTechDaily: Researchers have discovered that graphene naturally allows proton transport, especially around its nanoscale wrinkles. This finding could revolutionize the hydrogen economy by offering sustainable alternatives to existing catalysts and membranes. [...] In a recent publication in the journal Nature, a joint effort between the University of Warwick, spearheaded by Prof. Patrick Unwin, and The University of Manchester, led by Dr. Marcelo Lozada-Hidalgo and Prof. Andre Geim, presented their findings on this matter. Using ultra-high spatial resolution measurements, they conclusively demonstrated that perfect graphene crystals indeed allow proton transport. In a surprising twist, they also found that protons are strongly accelerated around nanoscale wrinkles and ripples present in the graphene crystal.
This groundbreaking revelation carries immense significance for the hydrogen economy. The current mechanisms for generating and using hydrogen often rely on costly catalysts and membranes, some of which have notable environmental impacts. Replacing these with sustainable 2D crystals like graphene could play a pivotal role in advancing green hydrogen production, subsequently reducing carbon emissions and aiding the shift towards a Net Zero carbon environment. [...] The team is optimistic about how this discovery can pave the way for novel hydrogen technologies. Dr. Lozada-Hidalgo said, "Exploiting the catalytic activity of ripples and wrinkles in 2D crystals is a fundamentally new way to accelerate ion transport and chemical reactions. This could lead to the development of low-cost catalysts for hydrogen-related technologies."
This groundbreaking revelation carries immense significance for the hydrogen economy. The current mechanisms for generating and using hydrogen often rely on costly catalysts and membranes, some of which have notable environmental impacts. Replacing these with sustainable 2D crystals like graphene could play a pivotal role in advancing green hydrogen production, subsequently reducing carbon emissions and aiding the shift towards a Net Zero carbon environment. [...] The team is optimistic about how this discovery can pave the way for novel hydrogen technologies. Dr. Lozada-Hidalgo said, "Exploiting the catalytic activity of ripples and wrinkles in 2D crystals is a fundamentally new way to accelerate ion transport and chemical reactions. This could lead to the development of low-cost catalysts for hydrogen-related technologies."
Protons ok, but what about ions in general? (Score:2)
Lithium ions, are they too fat?
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Lithium ions, are they too fat?
The mechanism will only work with hydrogen. If you strip an electron off hydrogen, all that's left is a bare proton, which can slip through the graphene mesh.
But strip an electron of a lithium atom, and you've still got two tightly bound electrons in the S-orbital, which makes it way bigger than a bare proton.
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Lithium nucleus contains 3 protons and 3 neutrons so it's way too big to pass through the membrane.
Yep, Li too big. (Score:2)
Even hydrogen with neutrons it sounds like...
"Abstract:
Defect-free graphene is impermeable to all atoms 1,2,3,4,5 and ions 6,7 under ambient conditions. Experiments that can resolve gas flows of a few atoms per hour through micrometre-sized membranes found that monocrystalline graphene is completely impermeable to helium, the smallest atom 2,5. Such membranes were also shown to be impermeable to all ions, including the smallest one, lithium 6,7. By contrast, graphene was reported to be highly permeable to p
Only solves 1-2 problems of many. (Score:4, Informative)
Hydrogen offers the best selection of the worst downsides as a vehicle power source. This development could solve the EV-like high up-front cost of the vehicle. It doesn't solve the EV-like refuel time, the gasoline-like fuel cost, the fact that hydrogen escapes through solids and embrittles steel on the way out, needs to be stored at either cryogenic temperatures or extreme pressures, the fact that it's currently available in very few places and has no supply network in place, and is currently produced almost entirely as a fossil fuel byproduct. Although it could offer alternatives for that last issue, it would come at the cost of cutting off the fossil fuel industry money that funds the Weekend at Bernie's act with the corpse of the hydrogen economy concept.
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... the fact that hydrogen escapes through solids ...
This discovery is actually bad news for hydrogen, since it was hoped that pure graphene was impermeable to hydrogen. Apparently the theory that postulated impermeability was wrong.
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How did Zeppelins in World War I solve the hydrogen permeability problem? I saw a documentary on TV about zeppelins one time. As I recall, the Germans got something from the carcasses of cattle to make the hydrogen gas bags out of. Whatever it was, could something like that be used again?
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Apparently in WWII Germany they banned sausage making to ensure enough supply.
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I applaud your ability to extract info by googling because I tried to find something myself and failed. I would imagine one wouldn't need as much of this hydrogen impervious material in hydrogen fuel lines as one needs for the gas bag of a zeppelin. On the other hand, one would expect to make a lot more vehicles than the Germans made Zeppelins.
One thing I did come across when googling is that there are people who want to bring back hydrogen based dirigibles and blimps as a practical, economic form of tran
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Yeah I read about the imperviousness to bullets...until the British basically built tracer rounds that pun
Re: Only solves 1-2 problems of many. (Score:1)
You forgot the KABOOM issue. The earth shattering KABOOM.
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You forgot the KABOOM issue. The earth shattering KABOOM.
There are lots of problems with hydrogen, but this isn't one of them.
Hydrogen is safer than gasoline or methane. It is lighter and dissipates easily. Gasoline fumes settle in low areas, while hydrogen floats away.
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Hydrogen is safer than gasoline or methane. It is lighter and dissipates easily. Gasoline fumes settle in low areas, while hydrogen floats
I wouldn't say stuff like this, because it may lead to people thinking too easy about hydrogen safety. Hydrogen is colorless, odorless and can ignite very easily and very energetically at a very large range of air mixtures. Even at close to 0% market penetration we have already seen many issues with explosions and fires at EV hydrogen fuel facilities and loading points. The easy dissipation and floating is true, but by itself can give new problems as it easily dissipates through containers or transports too
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Hydrogen is safer than gasoline or methane. It is lighter and dissipates easily. Gasoline fumes settle in low areas, while hydrogen floats away.
It's also insanely flammable at low concentrations though. Dissipating easily helps outside, but hydrogen-based systems will also operate inside. Even vehicles have to operate places like tunnels and parking garages. Overall, there ae definitely some concerns. That doesn't make it unworkable, it just means that the problem is real. The problem being real does not mean it's unsolvable or unmanageable, just that it's a consideration.
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Not if you let Marvin The Martian play with it...
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It doesn't solve the EV-like refuel time
I think you're generally correct, hydrogen has a ton of issues as a fuel.
I hadn't heard the EV-like refueling time. Why would that be the case? If I'm just pumping compressed or liquified hydrogen, I would expect it be on the order of pumping gas (that is, fill the tank in the time it takes to clean the windshield). I would not expect it to take 30 minutes. Are you sure that's how long it takes? If so, why is that?
Re: Only solves 1-2 problems of many. (Score:2)
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BUT hydrogen is much more volatile and more accident-prone while filling up
No, to make a fire with it, it needs to be a gas. And not a liquid.
And it needs to mix with air.
And if it just burns, the flame goes straight upwards.
The problem if it burs as a small flame, you hardly can see it in daylight.
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The so-called "hydrogen economy" does not exist yet, because we have not yet found practical ways to store and ship hydrogen in a form that is both inexpensive, safe, and reasonable in terms of energy density per unit of volume.
But it is quite energy-dense by weight, and hence holds great promise, IF the storage/shipping problem can be solved.
Similar promise accrues to many other potentially renewable technologies. We're pretty good at generating renewable energy, but still don't have any good way to store
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You are completely out of date.
All those problems are solved since decades.
I suggest to google "Australia hydrogen summit"
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the fact that hydrogen escapes through solids
That is wrong.
and embrittles steel on the way out, That is true. Hence it is not stored in steel tanks. ... oops.
needs to be stored at either cryogenic temperatures or extreme pressures
Common is pressure - 200bar in plastic tanks
It doesn't solve the EV-like refuel time
Sorry, you probably typoed: hydrogen is refilled like gasoline: connect hose. Start pumping. Stop pumping. Disconnect hose. Simple.
Hydrogen "battery" power (Score:2)
Re:Hydrogen not a source of energy (Score:2)
The rest of the universe would disagree with you.
There are essentially 2 sources of energy available to us in this system. Hydrogen Fusion (the sun) and nuclear fission. All other 'sources' are in fact stored energy that was generated by fusion in the first place.
For example, fossil fuels are plants that stored solar energy (photosynthesis) hundreds of millions of years ago,
Wind and hydro power are caused by the sun warming the atmosphere and moving it around.
We need to use more of the energy made by nucle
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It's an interesting thought experiment actually. If you had a magical pipeline to a gas giant that you could just suck hydrogen from as fuel. It would be, compared to other sources we use now, an apparently limitless source of energy. However, it's only "limitless" with a similarly "limitless" supply of oxygen to react it with. Because that's the real source of energy when we burn anything for energy. We're not just extracting stored energy from that fuel source, we're drawing from the stored energy of all
Re:Hydrogen not a source of energy (Score:4, Informative)
The rest of the universe would disagree with you.
There are essentially 2 sources of energy available to us in this system.
There is a third source that is not either - geothermal. The ultimate source of this energy is roughly evenly divided between heating by the decay of primordial radionuclides, and the self-gravity heat of formation from when the Earth first assembled from particles. It could be a significant contributor to the global energy supply is systematically exploited on the large scale.
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There are essentially 2 sources of energy available to us in this system. Hydrogen Fusion (the sun) and nuclear fission.
What's your plan to get some hydrogen? Go to the Sun, collect it and bring it back to earth?
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You don't find unreacted H2 in nature
Mild nitpick. You don't find unreacted H2 much on Earth. If "nature" includes the universe as a whole, the vast majority of the baryonic matter in the universe is in the form of H2.
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Fair enough. Most of the free hydrogen in the universe floating around in space is ionized and I assume most of the hydrogen in stars is too hot to form compounds. Any method of collecting it and concentrating it is pretty certain to turn it into H2 though.
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Solar panels are way better than batteries.
Methanol is way better than batteries.
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It isn't even that yet. We don't know how to store or transport H2 in a way that is at both economical and safe.
You're right in principle. H2 is proposed as a means of storing and transporting energy. Problem is, in that capacity, it really sucks. My money right now would be on using cheaply generated electricity to produce fuels with more density per unit volume, perhaps by sequestering CO2 from the environment to produce more or less carbon-neutral hydrocarbons.
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A glimmer of hope (Score:2)
If this leads to a breakthrough it would be really welcome however Hydrogen remains a difficult fuel
Hydrogen may be OK for static applications and as a feedstock however for transport and as an energy carrier I think it will be a bridge too far. It's big dangerous and inefficient.
Though it would also be nice if graphene could produce deuterium at a significantly lower cost. https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/graphene-sieves-deuterium-from-hydrogen/9308.article
Deuterium would lower the cost of heavy water r
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"Hydrogen may be OK for static applications and as a feedstock however for transport and as an energy carrier I think it will be a bridge too far. It's big dangerous and inefficient."
Hydrogen is the only way we are going to be able to power aircraft in the long run. Batteries are to heavy for anything but really short flights.
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I just read the artlcle by a person who, introduces his credentials as "FLIMAX, the electric aviation startup I am on the Advisory Board of". So electric aviation start-up guy is down on hydrogen. Quelle surprise.
e pulls out all the stops to attack hydrogen, but then fails to make a case for long-range aviation analysis being possible at all with batteries using the same sort of "what would it take" analysis approach. It ends with lots and lots of special pleading for electric aircraft, which is where where
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increasing the electrical hook-up to major airports if they were to start producing electricity on site
increasing the electrical hook-up to major airports if they were to start producing hydrogen with electricity on site
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Hydrogen is the only way we are going to be able to power aircraft in the long run. Batteries are to heavy for anything but really short flights.
Depends on how you define a battery, but you're not considering air-breathing batteries which have a potential for an order of magnitude higher specific energy than current batteries. There are also a myriad of other fuel cycles that don't produce gaseous waste. For example, burning metal powders. You could, in principle, have a turbofan powered by burning a metal powder that would produce no CO2. Plenty of metal oxides are very safe, but they still might have an environmental impact, for example, falling i
Re: A glimmer of hope (Score:1)
We could power aircraft with Tetraethyllead!
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I know you're being facetious, but I'm still going to ask what reaction you have in mind for tetraethyllead that produces energy without CO2? It's not actually unthinkable that there might be something else you can react it with to produce energy without producing greenhouse gases and, if it's self-contained, it would be pretty environmentally safe (barring plane crashes). I doubt any such reaction would meet the weight goals though.
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Hydrogen is the only way we are going to be able to power aircraft in the long run. Batteries are to heavy for anything but really short flights.
Synthetic methane made with hydrogen and atmospheric carbon is an option also. It is much easier to handle and to engineer into aircraft than hydrogen, but the cost of the fuel will be higher due to the carbon extraction process to keep it carbon neutral. This kind of high value atmospheric carbon use is about the only scenario where industrial carbon removal makes sense (large scale weathering geoengineering is another possibility).
â¦aiding the shift towards a Net Zero ca (Score:1)
Crystals are made out of carbon⦠â¦shift toward Net Zero carbon⦠made out of carbon⦠zero carbon⦠made out of car
DIVIDE BY ZERO
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Wish Firefox liked your fonts or whatever you're doing to type differently than everyone else. I get a lot of "â¦" in it.
Yay! (Score:2)
Useful for desalination? (Score:2)
Does breaking seawater into hydrogen, and then burning it work well for desalination?
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2H2O -> 2H2 + O2 is an endothermic reaction - you have to add energy.
If you're adding energy, you're not extracting energy hydrogen should be treated as a storage medium, not a generation source, unless you're talking about an over-unity fusion power generation facility - which doesn't exist yet.
Not only are you pumping power IN to generate usable hydrogen, you're extracting it by splitting water into its atomic components. The very water you also want to collect.
Sure, you can recombine it and get (som
In a lab, maybe... (Score:3)
Well, it would, sort of.
As Baron_Yam said, you need to add energy because H and O love each other very much more than they love themselves. So H2O is a lower energy state than H2 and O2.
We have expensive ways to separate them though, at around 90% efficiency. We also have ways to combine them again, to get back around 90% of the energy. Which means that we're down to about 80% efficient for that relatively high energy process.
Or we can use distillation or reverse osmosis. RO filters take a fair amount o
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Some methods you need to add minerals back into it to make it "taste right", pure steam distilled or RO water is *nasty* for most people.
Way off topic, since this has nothing at all to do with hydrogen energy, but this is an extremely questionable belief. Aquafina is a very popular bottled water that contains only 4 PPM dissolved solids (TDS), practically speaking (for human taste) no different from distilled water. If you are used to drinking mineral waters and expect water to have mineral flavoring then you will miss that, but mineral free water definitely does not taste "nasty". Also don't get this confused with "boiled water" (like fresh
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If you're going to contradict me, you might actually want to verify that you're correct first.
Aquafina is a very popular bottled water that contains only 4 PPM dissolved solids (TDS), practically speaking (for human taste) no different from distilled water.
Citation please that 4PPM dissolved solids doesn't taste different than distilled at 0PPM? Remember, I said that minerals need to be added back in for taste, I never said that you need more than trace amounts, or to get it up to levels normally associated with "mineral water".
I mean, I've had distilled water before, it tastes nasty to me, tastes nasty to a lot of other people. That it doesn't taste nasty to you,
groundbreaking revelation (Score:2)
PR, anyone?