An interesting twist on the Hydrogen production system using sunlight and water to react with copper and aluminium oxide that when heated to 200 Degrees Celsius and combined with “catalytic nano particles” initiate a chemical reaction to quickly release the stored hydrogen. The Hydrogen is then fed into a Fuel cell battery to provide a constant source of power to a household.

The idea basically being that all the hydrogen for one day can be created quickly from the chemical reaction and then temporarily stored in holding containers reliving the necessity to permanently store hydrogen which is a major obstacle for a Hydrogen based economy.

If the demonstration system can confirm the suggested results from the preliminary modelling this would be a handy way to provide a constant source of energy to a household without having to worry about battery replacements every few years and could be built into every house

The hybrid device contains series of copper tubes coated with a thin layer of aluminum and aluminum oxide and partly filled with catalytic nanoparticles. A combination of water and methanol flows through the vacuum-sealed tubes.
“This set-up allows up to 95% of the sunlight to be absorbed with very little being lost as heat to the surroundings,” Hotz said. “This is crucial because it permits us to achieve temperatures of well over 200 ºC within the tubes. By comparison, a standard solar collector can only heat water between 60 and 7 ºC.”

Once the evaporated liquid achieves a high enough temperature, tiny amounts of a catalyst are added. The combination of high temperature and catalysts produces hydrogen very efficiently, Hotz said. The hydrogen can be immediately directed to a fuel cell to provide electricity to a building during the day, or compressed and stored in a tank to provide power later.

Tags: construction, e=mc2, electricity, Energy Storage, Fuel, hydrogen, renewable, solar, water by Sparky
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As usual with press releases from MIT they provide just enough information to make it sound good but not enough to actually tell us anything useful.

Solar Energy Conversion

Solar fuel reactions require the coupling of multielectron processes to protons, and they are energetically uphill, thus requiring a light input. The Nocera group has pioneered each of these areas of science. Examples of multielectron photoreactions originate from the research group with the generalization of the concept of the multielectron excited state, most prominent of which has a parentage of two-electron mixed-valency. The Nocera group has also created the field of proton-coupled electron transfer (PCET) at a mechanistic level by timing the electron and proton with ultrafast lasers. With the frameworks of multielectron chemistry and PCET in place, the Nocera group has created the first HX (X = halide) splitting photocatalysts to produce hydrogen from homogeneous solution. The group has also created new H2O splitting catalysts. As has been widely discussed, the production of oxygen from water has been the primary barrier to efficient water splitting. The Nocera group has overcome this challenge with the discovery of cobalt and nickel catalysts that duplicate the solar fuels process of photosynthesis outside of the leaf – an artificial photosynthesis. Like the oxygen evolving catalyst (OEC) of photosynthesis, the new catalysts in the Nocera labs self assemble from water to form a partial cubane structure, they are self-healing and they split water to hydrogen and oxygen using light from neutral water, at atmospheric pressure and room temperature. The catalyst operates at 100 mA/cm2 at 76% efficiency. Moreover it can operate out of any water source including the Charles River in front of MIT. Finally, the ability to split neutral water has led to the discovery on an inexpensive H2 producing catalyst that operates at 1000 mA/cm2 at 35 mV overpotential. These catalyst discoveries have enabled the construction of inexpensive water splitting devices that may be coupled to either a photovoltaic panel or coupled directly to the surface of a semiconducting substrate (thus eliminating the module costs associate with a photovoltaic panel). This science discovery sets a course for the large scale deployment of solar energy by providing a mechanism for its storage as a fuel, especially for those in the non-legacy world.

So, what does it mean? The stored energy in water is converted to Hydrogen and Oxygen gas when sunlight is absorbed by the solar leaf. The solar panels integrated into the leaf create electricity which is then used to provide a current for the catalyst to breakdown the bonds holding the Hydrogen and Oxygen together. They say this provides enough energy to power a small home in rural Africa from a single Nocera leaf.

Will they also be required to store electricity in a battery? Will the leaf provide a constant stream of electricity for external use or is the current only useful for splitting water into hydrogen. In that case will it require a hydrogen storage tank?

So many questions abound and as usual MIT don’t provide the answers upfront. One would think that after so may years of making press releases they would have figured out by now how to make sure they get the correct information out and not just the information that sounds good.

Tags: Circuits, Components, e=mc2, Energy Storage, hydrogen by Sparky
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Very interesting claims being made in Italy this weekend regarding breakthrough demonstration of Nickel-Hydrogen (Ni-H) Cold fusion technology. The more appropriate technical name is Low Energy Nuclear Reactions (LENR) and it is also known as Chemically Assisted Nuclear Reactions (CANR). The basic premise is that when Hydrogen atoms meet Nickel atoms there is a chemical reaction which results in nuclear fusion as the atoms exchange energy. These scientists, Sergio Focardi and Andrea Rossi from Bologna University are claiming that their patented system is able to harness the energy released to provide a constant supply of heat to maintain a stable, non radioactive steam powered system. They are claiming that because it is a chemical process the nuclear cold fusion does not result in any additional radioactivity from the normal amount found in Hydrogen and Nickel atoms. Any radioactivity produced is shielded in the closed system and the device can be operated simply by turning it on at the switch and keeping the Nickel powder topped up every 6 months and the water flowing. The device creates more energy than it consumes. They have experimental measurements of up to 400 times the energy output for the energy input at which point things become very unstable. Clearly this is not a technology that the energy elite will want in the hands of the general public as that would mean the military doesn’t have access to the most powerful weapons anymore.

From the PESN writeup

Some other technical attributes of the process include:

- Regular Ni is used even though other isotopes may provide better efficiency. They think all the isotopes work to produce the effect.
- For some unknown reason, not all of the Ni in the cell reacts with the hydrogen to produce energy. The percentage of the Ni that reacts is very low.
- Even though the percentage of the Ni that reacts with hydrogen is very low one kilogram of nickel powder should deliver 10 kW of energy for 10,000 hours. The consumption rate of hydrogen and nickel are 0.1 g of Ni and 0.01 g of H to produce 10 kWh/h. Note that for every picogram of nickel that is actually fused or reacts to the hydrogen, much more must be added. Not all the nickel added will react. So if you add 0.1g of Ni to produce 10kWh/h only a small fraction of that Ni will actually be utilized. When the device shuts off due to running out of fuel most of the .1g could be remaining.
- Tungsten is in no way used. However, “other elements” are used.
- Radiation is produced. However in the device demonstrated which is made for commercial use no radiation escapes due to lead shielding. The fact that radiation is produced is proof of a nuclear reaction.
- In the demonstration device for every unit of input there was approximately 37 units of output.
- A small percentage of the nickel is transmuted into copper. The amount of copper found in the cell is far greater than the impurities in the nickel powder. None of this copper is “unstable.”
- There is no radioactivity in the cell after it is turned off. No nuclear “waste.”
- All of the information needed to successfully replicate a self sustaining system is in the patent application (which is being held proprietary presently).
- The power density for thermal energy only is 5 liters per kilowatt.
- The hydrogen has to be all hydrogen with no deuterium or heavy hydrogen. Apparently, any heavy hydrogen stops the reaction.
- This current system never goes below 6 times more energy out than in. During the test it produced 20 times more energy out than in. In the lab they have done similar tests and obtained 400 times more out than in, but it produced explosions.

In addition to using water as the transfer mechanism from heat to steam to turbine to electricity, the fuel is pure Nickel powder and distilled H2O (Yes, water…!) which gets converted into hydrogen. According to their measurements on consumption of fuel by their reactor a kilogram of nickel can provide 100,000 KWh before it is consumed. The reactor can be connected in series to raise the temperature produced, and in parallel to increase the amount of heat at the same temperature (as if they were electric batteries!). They have also stated that there is already a European industrial group that have licensed the patent and will produce a large-scale apparatus.

ni: usd 24000/tonne : energy output = 100,000kWh/kg
coal: usd 125/tonne : energy output = 6150 kWh/tonne

With this reactor 1 kg of nickel = $24 and provides 16 times as much energy as 1 tonne of coal. 100,000 kWh / 24(hours) = 4166 days (11 years) of constant supply at 10kW output. If the average house consumes between 2000 and 5000 kW/hour and given that there are approx 6 billion people in the world and according to worldmapper.org there were approx 1.7bil households in the whole world in 2002 we would need to use between 200,000 – 500,000 tonnes of nickel to provide power for every household in the world for 10 years straight. According to Bloomberg the world nickel supply for 2011 is 1,585,000 tonnes. According to insg there are estimated accessible reserves of 1.28bil tonnes worldwide or enough to meet 2008 demand for 100 years. (Of course that doesn’t take into account exponential increase in consumption and population over the coming century). Assuming the world population doesn’t continue to grow and we are able to cut back on the use of nickel for other industries, what we are looking at is the potential for everyone in the world to have an abundant supply of energy to meet all the needs of a modern household for 1.28mil years at current rate of consumption. With exponential increase in population and sharing the nickel with other industries we will run out of food and living space long before we run out out nickel and hydrogen.

Of course, claims of mastering cold fusion have been made in the past and have turn out to be hoaxes or scams. The interesting thing about this latest claim is that they have already been funded by the DoE and had their technology experimentally confirmed on US shores as well as in two separate institutes in Italy. Assuming the claims are valid the next question is how likely is it that this technology will be ready for mainstream application before the real power crunch kicks in for the majority of global energy consumers?

Getting the systems manufactured and in place within the next 5 years will be a major task for any large multinational corporation, let alone a bunch of nuclear physicists. Add in the additional resource and technology constrictions placed on the project by receiving DoE funding and the possibility that malicious organisations could use it as an excuse to kill a lot of people and the chances of the tech making it anywhere near the general public in the next 10 years is very slim.

It will take a major sea change in attitudes before micro scale, home scale and family friendly nuclear tech is allowed into the hands of the average person. Unfortunately it looks like this “breakthrough” will be restricted to military and government use only for the foreseeable future.

Tags: e=mc2, Fuel, nuclear by Sparky
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This has been known about since 1967 but still has not made it to market. Purdue University Professor Jerry Woodal has found a way to use Aluminium and Gallium to split water. No electricity needed!!! Well, except for the energy required to extract the metals from the earth and form them into the composite in the first place… Jerry is most excited about the possibility of using it as a fuel multiplier so in conjunction with a plasma spark plug or plasma fuel reformer the hydrogen could be used to increase the efficiency of the gasoline used in hybrid or standard ICE cars. What’s the delay?

View the lectures below.

THE SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY OF ALUMINUM-GALLIUM ALLOYS AS A MATERIAL FOR ENERGY STORAGE, TRANSPORT AND SPLITTING WATER

THE ALUMINUM ENABLING HYDROGEN FUEL ECONOMY

From 2007 lecture

2,7lbs of Al will produce the same amount of energy in the form of hydrogen as 1lb of gasoline. i.e 19K BTU

It takes 20 gal x 6.5 lbs/gal = 130 lbs gasoline to drive an average car for 350 mi or 350 lbs Al

At $3/gal for gasoline and $0.8/lb for Al the trip costs $60 using gasoline and $280 using Al

If an Al recycler is built next to a nuclear power plant with and on-site power cost of $0.02/KW-hour Al can be recycled from alumina back to Al for 9 kW/hr/lb x 350lbs x $0.02/kW-hr = $63

The cost of 2.7 lbs would be about 49 cents

At $3/gallon, 1lb of gasoline costs 46 cents

Tags: Engine, Fuel, Fundamentals by Sparky
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The question comes to mind of how much energy is stored in water if we are going to use it as a fuel. Looking around there are conflicting amounts provided on the internet.

A litre of water contains the equivalent of 1366 litres of hydrogen – which provides the same energy as 0.4 litres of petrol.

2H20 –> 2H2 + 02
Mr of H20 = 18
No. of moles of H20 = 1000/18 = 55.66666
No. of moles of H2 produced = 55.66666
At room temperature and pressure, the amount of H2 (hydrogen) produced: 55.66666 x 24 = 1333.33 dm^3 where 1 dm^3 is 1 litre of gas = 1000 m^3 of gas

1 liter of water contains (approx) 55.56 moles of water, so 111.11 moles of hydrogen.

Using the ideal gas equation, PV=nRT at 1 atmosphere (sealevel), and room temperature (22C, 295K)

V = 111.11 * 0.08205784 * 295 / 1

Gives 2689.7 liters of hydrogen.

The amount of hydrogen extracted from a gallon of water can be found very easily using the molecular weight of H20 (water), Hydrogen and Oxygen, along with mass conservation. the molecular weight of water is 2 H (molecular weight 1) + 1 Oxygen (Molecular weight 16) for a total of 18. And for every Molecule of water converted, we would get 2 Molecules of Hydrogen.

So, now the question is, how many molecules of water are there in a gallon of water? The density of water is 1g/(cm3) so in 1 gallon of water ( about 3.785 Liters or 3785 cm3) the mass of the water is, 3785g. 1 mole of 6.02×1023 molecules of water is equal has the mass in grams equal to the molecular weight or 18 grams per mole. so 3785 grams corresponds to about 1.265 x 1026 molecules of water.

Now, if every single one of those molecules were converted into Hydrogen we would get twice as much hydrogen as we had of water. or 2.53 x 1026 molecules of hydrogen. however since hydrogen is a diatomic molecule, meaning that the hydrogen that we talk about is H2, we would get 1.265 x 1026 molecules of hydrogen. at 1 atmospheric pressure and 273K, 1 mole of hydrogen fills approximately 22.4L of volume. so 1.265 x 1026 molecules or about 210 moles, would fill 4707 Liters of volume.

It is known that a gram atom is equal to atomic mass of substance; a gram molecule is equal to molecular mass of substance. For example, the gram molecule of hydrogen in the water molecule is equal to two grams; the gram-atom of the oxygen atom is 16 grams. The gram molecule of water is equal to 18 grams. Hydrogen mass in a water molecule is 2 x 100 / 18 = 11.11%; oxygen mass is 16 x 100 / 18 = 88.89 %; this ratio of hydrogen and oxygen is in one liter of water. It means that 111.11 grams of hydrogen and 888.89 grams of oxygen are in 1000 grams of water.

One liter of hydrogen weighs 0.09 g; one liter of oxygen weighs 1.47 g. It means that it is possible to produce 111.11 / 0.09 = 1234.44 liters of hydrogen and 888.89 / 1.47 = 604.69 liters of oxygen from one liter of water. It appears from this that one gram of water contains 1.23 liters of hydrogen. Energy consumption for production of 1000 liters of hydrogen is 4 kWh and for one liter 4 Wh. As it is possible to produce 1.234 liters of hydrogen from one gram of water, 1.234 x 4 = 4.94 Wh is spent for hydrogen production from one gram of water now.

If you mean hydrogen gas, H2, just naturally present in the water, then essentially none.

If you mean how much hydrogen gas could be generated by the electrolysis of 1 gallon of water, that is a stoichiometry problem. The balanced reaction is:
2H2O –> 2H2 + O2
The mass of 1 gallon of water is 3.7854 kilograms, which is 210.3 moles of H2O. From the stoichiometry, there is a 1 to 1 (2 to 2) ratio of water to hydrogen produced, and so 210.3 moles of H2 will be produced. 210.3 moles of H2 weighs 420.6 grams, or just under one pound.

If you mean hydrogen ions, H+, then it depends on the pH of the water. In perfectly pure, neutral water with pH of 7, then the concentration of H+ is 10-7 moles per liter. In one gallon, there are 3.7854 liters. So in one gallon of pure water, there are 3.7854 * 10-7 moles of H+.

Gasoline has around 44 MegaJoules/kg
H2 has around 121 MJ/kg

So, H2 has 2.75x the energy per weight of gasoline

So, if you assume 20 mpg now @ 60 mph, you burn 3 gallons per hr, which is 0.05 gal/min. Gas is about 4 kgs/gal so you burn 0.2 kg/min. Using the energy density difference (2.75) you get 0.073kg of H2 per min. Assuming room pressure and ideal gas law (sadly H2 is not an ideal gas but lets use it anway, i’m lazy) you get 22.7 liters of gas per 2 g of hydrogen. So, after that bunch of math you get 825 liters/min of uncompressed gas.

This amount of gas would be difficult to store, at 2500 psi this is the equalent of 1 gallon of volume, so it would take a big, heavy tank to hold something useful

The other issue with using hydrogen is how to make it in real quantities. The best available methods right now are electrolosis which uses

Theoretically it takes 32.9 kWh/kg of H2 produced

Typical electric costs in the US are $0.15/kwk so it would cost $4.94 per KG to make it using a large commercial system

An actual system is never this efficient, even big systems are 60 kwh per kg, so I’d double that number.

Tags: e=mc2, Fundamentals by Sparky
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Here’s an write up from a Stanford University Professor of Computer science about the various uses and drawbacks for hydrogen as a fuel. Seems not much has changed since he started writing the page in 1996. Has useful data about the power available in hydrogen.

Hydrogen is the lightest of the elements with an atomic weight of 1.0. Liquid hydrogen has a density of 0.07 grams per cubic centimeter, whereas water has a density of 1.0 g/cc and gasoline about 0.75 g/cc. These facts give hydrogen both advantages and disadvantages. The advantage is that it stores approximately 2.6 times the energy per unit mass as gasoline, and the disadvantage is that it needs about 4 times the volume for a given amount of energy. A 15 gallon automobile gasoline tank contains 90 pounds of gasoline. The corresponding hydrogen tank would be 60 gallons, but the hydrogen would weigh only 34 pounds.

In terms of energy contained, 9.5 kg of hydrogen is equivalent to 25kg of gasoline ( Peschka 1987). Storing 25 kg of gasoline requires a tank with a mass of 17 kg, whereas the storage of 9.5 kg of hydrogen requires 55kg, (Peschka 1987). Part of the reason for this difference is that the volume of hydrogen fuel is about 4 times greater for the same energy content of gasoline. Although the hydrogen storage vessel is large, hydrogen burns 1.33 times more efficiently than gasoline in automobiles ( Bockris and Wass 1988). In tests a BMW 745h liquid-hydrogen test vehicle with a 75 kg tank and the energy equivalent of 40 liters of gasoline had a cruising range in traffic of 400 km, or a fuel efficiency of 10 km per liter ( Winter 1986).

Tags: e=mc2, Fuel by Sparky
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What ever happened to the Arvin Meritor Plasma Fuel reformer? It was billed as the revolution to help meet 2010 emission standards. Now it seem to be almost completely shelved if you look around the internet.

Press Release 2004

This product has all the promise of the plasma spark plug but with the backing of a large well respected automotive parts manufacturer and MIT science too boot.

Initial development of a Plasma Fuel Reformer required as much as 2,000 watts of electrical energy to operate. A measure of the progress is that today’s unit uses an average of less than 100 watts. Full production systems are likely to be even lower. Early systems took many seconds to produce hydrogen from cold exhaust, an important disadvantage in real-world use, as emissions are highest at this time. The latest versions are running in less than a second. And the first prototypes only produced hydrogen at just one flow rate. Today’s prototypes manage transient or varying flow demands equally well.

Almost the same principal as the plasma spark plug concept really. Strange that this hasn’t made it to market yet. You would think people would be very interested in having it on board to cut emissions and save on consumption.

The Plasma Fuel Reformer stems from work done by and licensed from MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center . Seven years in development, the Plasma Fuel Reformer — or Plasmatron as MIT called it — could have an enormous impact on emissions and fuel efficiency. From MIT in 2003:

The team is finding that the device could make vehicles cleaner and more efficient, with a potentially significant impact on oil consumption.

“If widespread use of plasmatron hydrogen-enhanced gasoline engines could eventually increase the average efficiency of cars and other light-duty vehicles by 20 percent, the amount of gasoline that could be saved would be around 25 billion gallons a year,” [Daniel] Cohn [one of the leaders of the team and head of the Plasma Technology Division at MIT’s PSFC] said. “That corresponds to around 70 percent of the oil that is currently imported by the United States from the Middle East.”

The Bush administration has made development of a hydrogen-powered vehicle a priority, [John] Heywood [John Heywood, director of MIT’s Sloan Automotive Lab] noted. “That’s an important goal, as it could lead to more efficient, cleaner vehicles, but is it the only way to get there? Engines using plasmatron reformer technology could have a comparable impact, but in a much shorter time frame,” he said.

The work was funded by the Department of Energy’s FreedomCAR and Vehicle Technologies Program and by ArvinMeritor.

MIT PRESS RELEASE – from 2003!!!

The researchers and colleagues from industry report that the plasmatron, used with an exhaust treatment catalyst on a diesel engine bus, removed up to 90 percent of nitrogen oxides (NOx) from the bus’s emissions. Nitrogen oxides are the primary components of smog.

The plasmatron reformer also cut in half the amount of fuel needed for the removal process. “The absorption catalyst approach under consideration for diesel exhaust NOx removal requires additional fuel to work,” explained Daniel R. Cohn, one of the leaders of the team and head of the Plasma Technology Division at MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center (PSFC). “The plasmatron reformer reduced that amount of fuel by a factor of two compared to a system without the plasmatron.”

Tags: Components, e=mc2, Engine, Fuel by Sparky
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Scientists have measured the speed the hydrogen atoms switch bonds with oxygen in liquid water at 160 billion times per second.

Tags: e=mc2, Fundamentals by Sparky
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Here is an interesting link from youtube about a guy called Michael Strizki. He uses solar power to convert water into hydrogen (using an electrylser) which he then stores in 10 x 1,000 gallon propane tanks in his garden. He then uses the hydrogen in those tanks to power his house through the winter. Obviously a huge energy negative in terms of manufacturing all the parts that go into making his system work but it is a very good proof of concept that sunlight can be used to fully power a home once all the petrol and coal has been used to build the technology.

Seems like Michael has a bit of Tim “The Toolman” Tailor in him which he had to get out. At least he is not just burning rubber down at the track.

According to the Thushara Priyamal Edirisinghe, the generator he has designed is capable of running a motor car for 80 kilometres using only one litre of water, without any danger to life or any impact on the environment.

“The specialty of my invention is its ability to produce this energy from water with a minimal electric current of barely 0.5 amperes, which was not possible earlier,” Thushara says.

Tags: Chronology, Engine, Fuel by Sparky
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