Last week we ignited some healthy discussion in the comments with my post on the (de)merits of on-board hydrogen generators and injectors. While few could argue with my basic thermodynamic analysis of the process, defenders repeated the claim from producers of these systems that something magical happens when you add hydrogen to the air fuel mixture of an engine. We've looked into this a little further in recent days including with a powertrain engineer that actually understands combustion processes. In the comments on the previous article a number of readers repeated claims that adding H2 gas or the H2/O2 blend has a catalytic effect on the combustion properties. While there is no evidence of this being true, the addition of hydrogen to the mix can have some beneficial effects in certain circumstances.

Hydrogen does indeed have a faster burn rate than gasoline. Blending even a little bit of it with gasoline will indeed increase the burn rate of the mixture. The idea that was put forward in at least one of the comments is that this would faster burn would trigger knocking in the engine that would be detected by the engine management system resulting in retarding of the spark and more of the explosive force pushing the piston down during the power stroke. This is nominally true, but it only applies to newer engines that have knock sensors. There are however a number of problems with this. Read on after the jump for the rest of this discussion.

[Source: Fuel Cell Insider, Popular Mechanics]

One of the biggest cost drivers for electrolyzers and fuel cells is the need for precious metals like platinum to act as catalysts. At $1,700-2,000 per ounce, it can rapidly drive the costs of a fuel cell through the roof. As a result one of the main areas of development in fuel cells has been reduced use of catalysts and new catalyst materials. MIT Chemist Daniel Nocera has been working on this problem and discovered that cobalt and phosphate may make an excellent substitute in electrolyzers. At $2.25 an ounce and $.05 an ounce, respectively the new catalysts have a huge cost advantage and reportedly are just as effective. Nocera and his team came to the realization by studying how photosynthesis in plants works to split water into its component elements. On the fuel cell side Chemist Bjorn Winther-Jensen of Monash University in Australia have developed a polymer material that is as effective as platinum in turning hydrogen and oxygen into electricity and water. While it is not as cheap as the cobalt and phosphate, at $57 an ounce it is still a tiny fraction of the cost of the precious metal.

[Source: Scientific American]

If Jeremy's post last week piqued your interest, here's the video to prove it. Found in the magical realm of YouTube, this news story was originally on NBC News. John Kanzius was trying to find a way to cure cancer via a specialized bombardment of radio waves. What he accidentally discovered was that when he put a test tube of salt water in the beam of radio waves, it disrupted the bonds between hydrogen and oxygen and ignited a flame that burned up to 3000 degrees. Needless to say, this is an alarming discovery.

While Kanzius is using the flame to run a small model steam engine, it may perhaps have greater potential as a substitution for an electrolyzer. Or, if the system can be miniaturized and made cost-effectively efficient, it could combust in the cylinder of an ICE directly. There is also a lot of valid criticism regarding this idea, which many of you commented on last week. In any case, Kanzius' discovery could greatly impact the transportation industry, as well as find the cure to cancer he was looking for in the first place.


Related Posts:

• Salt Water as fuel? Burning hydrogen with radio waves? It's true
• Stan Meyer and the Mysterious, Elusive Electrolyzer

Related Video:

• Salt water into fire

[Source: YouTube -- Thanks for the tip, Sean!]

Researchers at the Savannah River National Laboratory have completed their first long duration of a new hybrid sulfur process electrolyzer. The process works in two main stages with the first taking sulfuric acid and decomposing it into oxygen and sulfur dioxide in the presence of heat from a nuclear reactor.

The other stage puts the sulfur dioxide and water into the electrolyzer to produce hydrogen and sulfuric acid. The presence of the sulfur dioxide reduces the voltage required across the electrodes to 0.8V per cell although the researchers are confident they can further reduce that to 0.6V. That brings the overall efficiency of the process to over fifty percent. SRNL is currently working on a larger multi-cell due to be completed next year. Longer term, SRNL is working on an integrated system that incorporates both stages of the hybrid sulfur process at the DOE's next generation nuclear plant in Idaho.

[Source: Department of Energy]

Who woulda thunk that the first hydrogen-powered community would be Vestenskov, Denmark? In the next couple years, that will be a reality, as the Lolland Hydrogen Community will be installing Micro Combined Heat and Power stations in 35 homes.

In Nakskov, an island of Lolland, their main power source is generated by wind power, and using that renewable source of energy, they generate 50 percent more power than they use. The excess power is going to be routed into electrolysis to make hydrogen fuel cells. While electrolysis is a very inefficient energy conversion method, using a renewable energy source negates the issue. To make the process more efficient, the oxygen split off from the hydrogen in the electrolysis process will be sent to the municipal water treatment facility to speed up their biological processes.

This project is made possible by a joint partnership between IRD Fuel Cells, Baltic Sea Solutions, the Municipality of Lolland, and funding from the Danish Energy Authority. So how does it feel to be shown up by the little guys?

[Source: Baltic Sea Solutions via RenewableEnergyAccess.com]

The National Hydrogen Association Meeting is coming up this week in San Antonio, Texas and QuantumSphere will be making a presentation about a new breakthrough in hydrogen electrolysis. QSI makes nano metals and will be a announcing a new electrolysis electrode design that uses nano scale catalysts combined with larger materials, to achieve dramatic increases in hydrogen generation efficiency.

QSI is claiming their new design has an efficiency of more than eighty-five percent at lower current flow rates and can produce seven times as much hydrogen as current systems. That puts them ahead of the Department of Energy 2010 target of seventy-five percent efficiency. At higher current levels the efficiency drops off to sixty percent but is still well above the efficiency of nickel powder even at the lower current levels. If this can be verified and commercialized it could move electrolysis a big step closer to being a viable large scale source of hydrogen.

[Source: QuantumSphere Inc.]

How many ways can you make hydrogen? We know of a wide variety (waves and wind are just two recent possibilities), but researchers are constantly studying others (we'll need them, if the hydrogen economy is ever going to work). The Hydrogen Solar Ltd. company is working on a new method that uses a thin photoactive film made of iron oxide nanoparticles that convert sunlight-to-hydrogen by splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen. Hydrogen Solar was just awarded a £70,000 research grant from the South East England Development Agency (SEEDA) for this work. The process currently has a sunlight-to-hydrogen conversion efficiency of 2.1 percent but has a theoretical maximum of 20 percent. The grant money will pay for an18-month program that will work to get as close to 20 percent as possible.

[Source: Hydrogen Solar]

HyPower have fitted a Volkswagen GTi with their H2 Reactor (H2R) hydrogen system to show that it can power the vehicle using only water. Designed to use electrolysis on the fly to split water into hydrogen and oxygen, the system then uses the hydrogen/oxygen gas to power its original internal combustion engine.

It would appear the system uses onboard batteries to run the H2R leaving the vehicle's motion to be powered entirely by hydrogen. In-car electrolysis has the advantage of doing away with the need to store highly compressed hydrogen in special storage tanks. Further, you would never need to head to your local gas station either as the only input beyond electricity for batteries would be water.

The H2R uses a highly efficient electrolysis process to produce 1 litre / 0.26 gallons of hydrogen per 1 watt hour. HyPower bills this as being around 2 to 2.5 times more efficient than the current performance of competing technologies. Live demonstrations will be held on February 28, 2007 to demonstrate the H2R in operation for independent experts to confirm the results. A web cast of the event will also take place via YouTube.

Related:

• HyPower receives inquiry about Hydro Power Pak from U.S. Department of Defense

[Source: Wired News]

Proton Energy Systems was started 10 years with the aim of developing on-site hydrogen generation systems using proton exchange membrane electrolysis systems. The idea is that instead of distributing and storing liquid or gaseous hydrogen it would be produced essentially on-demand from electricity and water. Proton Energy has now signed a contract with Shell Hydrogen to install a hydrogen filling station in the New York City area.

This will give Proton a chance to demonstrate their technology in a cold weather climate. They'll be evaluating the performance of the system against the performance of similar installations in other climates. Proton is the prime contractor for Shell and will take care of the entire installation.

If this hydrogen generation system is efficient enough it could conceivably solve much of the problem with the creation of a hydrogen infrastructure by effectively eliminating the need for one. This type of installation only needs a source of water and electricity. If it could make effective use of solar or wind energy it could really make a significant dent in emissions of all kinds of pollutants.

[Source: Proton Energy Systems]

Ask any pragmatic member of the automotive community when we might see a hydrogen-powered vehicles (fuel cell or internal-combustion engine), and the answer will probably range from "several years" to "several decades". General Electric looks to be trying to push that towards the lower end of the range with a prototype electrolysis device that promises low-cost hydrogen.

GE has replaced certain expensive metal components in the electrolysis process with Noryl, an inexpensive thermoplastic (although not by the standards of the resin world!). We're guessing that this is Noryl GTX, which was developed for use in electrostatic paint processes and thus is electrically conductive by means of embedded carbon fibers. By doing so, the cost of hydrogen may potentially plummet from $8/kilogram to $3/kilogram, or what is said to be in the same realm as current gasoline prices (presumably, this still doesn't include the costs of storing the hydrogen in a practical "fuel tank").

As the saying goes - what should come quickly usually takes a lot longer than anyone thinks, and what looks to be way out on the horizon often appears much more quickly than anyone expects. The category that hydrogen happens to fall into remains to be seen.

[Source: Popular Mechanics]