Researchers claim hydrogen energy advance

http://www.gla.ac.uk/news/headline_358595_en.html

by Istof • 12 years ago

98 29 12 years ago

gla.ac.uk

mnw21cam• 12 years ago

Slightly more information: http://www.gla.ac.uk/news/headline_358595_en.html

Full paper: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/345/6202/1326.abstract

Shivetya• 12 years ago

anyone with access to the full paper, is there an estimate of how much time is required to commercialize this? I love reading about discoveries and such but many are years off and I could not find such information in the linked articles

jobu2• 12 years ago

Any details on what the energy density is of this "liquid sponge" they're using?

If it isn't corrosive or difficult to store then it may be an option for large, stationary batteries, but it would be a really big deal if it's energy density is even comparable to ethanol. Pure ethanol is 76,330 Btu/gal and gasoline is 116,090 Btu/gal: http://www.afdc.energy.gov/fuels/fuel_comparison_chart.pdf

maxerickson• 12 years ago

The editors summary at the Science link says it's silico-tungstic acid.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicotungstic_acid

The university press release talks about replacing fossil fuels in fertilizer production, from that I would guess they aren't pushing it as a storage solution.

dang• 12 years ago

Thanks, we changed the url to that first one from http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-291683....

integricho• 12 years ago

How long will it take to put this technology into production?

yeureka• 12 years ago

I hope this makes my childhood visions of ocean floating hydrogen production factories come true!

3rd3• 12 years ago

Isn't there still the problem that storing hydrogen is impractical?

valarauca1• 12 years ago

Yes and No.

Storing liquified gasses is a solved problem. The auto-industry at least has been experimenting with Liquid Propane Gas for a while, without issues. Actually most automobiles in Turkey run on LPG.

Hydrogen is a slightly different animal, colder temperatures, and more explosive. We know the materials that will work, we know how to produce them. Its more of an engineering/production/economy of scale issue then anything else.

oillio2• 12 years ago

Hydrogen storage is significantly more difficult than LPG.

The pressures need to be higher, which means stronger and more expensive tanks. It also means we must input more energy to compress the gas for storage.

Hydrogen is also significantly smaller and more reactive than NG. Which also means the tanks are more expensive as they need to be resistant against corrosion. Additionally, the valves and seals in the system need to be of a higher class as hydrogen is more prone to leak.

oillio2• 12 years ago

The story claims that they are "locking up the hydrogen in a liquid." They say they are actually producing the hydrogen in a different chamber from where the electrolysis is done. They don't discuss the possibility of storage in this intermediate liquid, however.

Maybe it would be possible to store the liquid and release the hydrogen only when it is actually going to be used.

higherpurpose• 12 years ago

I don't think hydrogen has any chance of working in cars anymore, not when through the combination of solar panels and batteries, cars can run virtually for free. That said, it's probably good to see research continue on this, since we might end up using it for other purposes.

seren• 12 years ago

I am not sure that battery production could scale up to 50 millions vehicle produced each year, without mentioning we will also need to replace a significant part of the installed base regularly. We can however hope that self driving car would significantly reduce the number of car needed.

lkesteloot• 12 years ago

Self-driving cars would not reduce not number of cars produced. If anything, it would increase it, since going somewhere would become easier.

drzaiusapelord2• 12 years ago

All electric cars take hours to charge off of 120v or 240v mains at up to 10kw. There's no way you're powering your car with even a garage roof full of solar cells this way, unless you want to wait days for the car to charge. 85 kwh is a lot of capacity to fill.

eitally• 12 years ago

But if your solar panels are generating energy and storing it in a large capacitor (like Bloom Energy does) for later release, then it could -- in theory, at least -- be pushed to the car much faster than a standard 120/240v main.

jrapdx3• 12 years ago

This sounds interesting. Not real clear about details, but apparently it uses silicotungstic acid, a common oxidative catalyst. Water electrolysis produces oxygen, which would be catalytically oxidized to peroxide, binding O-, and presumably the H+ is bound somehow as well. Later hydrogen (as H-H) and oxygen are recoverable without further energy input, much as oxygen is released from hydrogen peroxide because it's already at a higher energy state.

That's as much as I can glean from the paper's abstract. Perhaps some folks out there can read between the lines better than I'm able to.

I gather the utility of the technology is not so much for high demand applications, like electric cars, but more for large scale electricity generation, replacing (or augmenting) current fossil-fuel sources feeding the electric power grid.

schiffern2• 12 years ago

Currently, industrial production of hydrogen relies overwhelmingly on fossil fuels to power the electrolysis process.

Currently 95+% of hydrogen is produced from natural gas via steam reformation (releasing just as much CO2 and fugitive methane as burning it), which also uses lots of heat (read: coal). With such an enormous factual inaccuracy, it's hard to take the rest of the article seriously.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steam_reforming

wmeredith2• 12 years ago

Uh, coal and natural gas are both fossil fuels.

Edit: As long as we're using wikipedia links for citation, here's the one on fossil fuels. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossil_fuel

beambot• 12 years ago

They are fossil fuels, but extracting hydrogen from natural gas does not use electrolysis. So the article is factually incorrect, yes?

huherto• 12 years ago

How would the hydrogen be used? Directly as a fuel, or as a means to create electricity ?

jstsch• 12 years ago

When you have cheap hydrogen it is relatively easy and cheap to use the Sabatier reaction to produce methane (and capture co2 from industry in the process). Basically natural gas. Easy to store and handle. Carbon negative.

Researchers claim hydrogen energy advance

Related Stories