New Generation of Hydrogen Fuel Cells Powers Up

An anonymous reader writes "A safer and more practical way of storing and releasing hydrogen, discovered by two Arizona State University researchers, could lead to a new type of fuel cell capable of packing 10 times more energy. The key is apparently using the alkaline compound borohydride — 'a 30% solution of borohydride in water actually contains one-third more hydrogen than the same volume of liquid hydrogen.'"

Chemical info on Borohydride

[xmas2003 (739875)]

Wiki has a decent write up on NaBH4 [wikipedia.org] for those interested and mentions the applicability to Fuel Cells.

This is still in the research/development phase as per the article "Dr. Gervasio recognises that there are still many steps between his prototype and a competitively priced, off-the-shelf, battery-sized fuel cell. Nevertheless, he believes they could appear in power-hungry devices such as laptops, camcorders, and radios within five years." So until then, I'll be using CnH2n+2 to mow my lawn. [watching-grass-grow.com]

Re:Chemical info on Borohydride

[palapa (69874)]

Anhydrous ammonia has a hydrogen density of 0.12 gm/cm^3, compared to liquid hydrogen with a density of 0.07 gm/cm^3. In addition, ammonia is easy to reform for use in a fuel cell. Ammonia is already heavily distributed for agriculture, it volatilizes off as a lighter than air gas, it contains no carbon, and finding leaks is easy! The down side to either hydrogen-boride or ammonia is that they're not energy sources in themselves, but function (like a battery) as a convenient way to store energy.

Re:Chemical info on Borohydride

[Smidge204 (605297)]

Diesel fuel has a hydrogen density of about 0.23 gm/cm^3, is a stable liquid at room temperature, and is noncorrosive (both Sodium Borohydride and Ammonia are corrosive). Biodiesel is roughly the same properties with the added benefit of being sulphur-free, cleaner burning (it's a naturally "oxygenated" fuel), biodegradable and renewable.

The best, though, is that you can use any mixture of the two in existing vehicles with zero modifications* using the existing fuel storage, distribution and dispensing infrastructure.

(* Rich Biodiesel blends may require additives or fuel preheaters for cold weather climates to prevent clouding.)
=Smidge=

Re:Chemical info on Borohydride

[Rei (128717)]

The only energy source there is for our planet is the sun. All other fuels are essentially batteries there is only a difference as to when it was charged.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go use some more electricity that was pushed onto the wires by the local power plant that runs on solar-powered uranium.

In other news

[192939495969798999 (58312)]

curiously all research lost in a massive fire when a gasoline tanker truck collided with the research building, Big Oil was unavailable for comment.

Carbon

[BadAnalogyGuy (945258)]

No one ever seems to mention this, but you can get some remarkably high energy capacity and relative stability (it's not going to blow up without a trigger) by using hydrogen-carbon compounds.

Maybe I'm just a kook, but some serious work ought to go towards that sort of research, I think.

Re:Carbon

[gurps_npc (621217)]

You mean like the billions of dollars each year paid for by oil companies?

Well for one thing, Sodium borohydride the fuel we are discussing has a HIGHER energy capacity then hydrogen-carbon compounds and has a HIGHER stability - less likely to burn).

It is in most cases a far better fuel than hydrogen-carbon compounds like gasoline.

The only reason we use gasoline is that oil is, despite new issues, still very plentiful. As we use it up, that will change.

Energy density

[j1m+5n0w (749199)]

In the article, they state the energy density of this new fuel is 600 watt hours / litre, with the goal of eventually getting it up to 2200.

According to wikipedia, gasoline has an energy density of 32 megajoules per litre, which if I did the conversion right, comes out to about 8890 watt hours / litre. This sounds like a big difference until you consider that gas engines are typically somewhere around %20-30 efficient. It appears they may some day make a fuel that's roughly equivalent to gasoline.

Re:Energy density

[TubeSteak (669689)]

You know, hydrogen injection does wonderful things for diesel motors.

Instead of going 100% hydrogen or 100% [fossil fuel], you get more power & lower emission by running a combination.

Right now there is at least one company that sells a kit for large diesels which electrolyzes hydrogen (from water) on the spot & injects it along with the diesel fuel.

That system provides relatively small amounts of hydrogen, but this researcher [abc.net.au] claims 60:40 hydrogen:diesel hits the sweet spot..

Huh? Help out an under educated ignorant, please

[Dimes (10216)]

Ok, I am confused.....or ignorant.

How does a mixture of Borohydride(not pure hydrogen) and Water(which is already only 2/3 hy
drogen) end up being more hydrogen than Liquid Hydrogen? Isn't Liquid Hydrogen pure hydrogen?

If I am ignorant, educate me....but this sorta reminds me of the line from Anchorman:

"60% of the time it works 100% of the time"

Help me understand.

dimes

Re:Huh? Help out an under educated ignorant, pleas

[Corp186 (571189)]

Although I am not familiar with the chemistry of this research, it is quite possible to pack inordinate amounts of compounds in a solution. For instance, 1 ml (1 g) of water can hold 99 g of the compound used to develop film. The space around molecules in a solution can vary quite a bit, and if the geometries of the solute and solvent match very well to the forces between them, the wasted space can be decreased, increasing the concentration of the solution.

Re:Huh? Help out an under educated ignorant, pleas

[LotsOfPhil (982823)]

Liquid H2 is not very dense at all. It's density is .068 g/mL (compared to water, which is 1 g/mL). When the borohydride is added to water, you get NaBO2 and 4 H2 molecules.

Re:Huh? Help out an under educated ignorant, pleas

[Your Pal Dave (33229)]

They're probably figuring it on a volumetric basis. Liquid hydrogen is not very dense (71 g/l). I would imagine this solution would be greater than water (1000 g/l). In a mobile application the volume of the fuel would be very important, and storing LH2 is non-trivial due to the temperatures and pressures involved.

Re:Huh? Help out an under educated ignorant, pleas

[OverlordQ (264228)]

Water, on the other hand, is solid and fairly dense at room temperature.
Can anyone spot-check this for sanity?

I dont know about you, but room temperature around here is a bit more then 0C, so 'round here our water is in it's liquid form at room temperature.

Energy density

[gr8_phk (621180)]

Who cares about how much hydrogen you can get into a given volume. It should be all about energy per volume. It will be great when someone notices the energy density of hydrogen atoms attached to carbon chains - i.e. hydrocarbons. Oh wait...

Not New

[gfordham (609304)]

Look up (MCEL) Millenium Cell, They've been doing this for awhile. I believe the chemistry for this has been around a while too lazy to look it up tho. Platinum Catylitic mesh, and Borohydride The fuelcellstore has a nice little generator [fuelcellstore.com] --G

New generation?

[zdzichu (100333)]

I'm still waiting for previous generation to be available as laptop battery.

Hmmm ...

[Shadowlore (10860)]

It uses ruthenium. Ruthenium runs about 175 USD/ounce. Ruthenium is a member the cateogry called "precious metals". It's a rather limited supply item. Given it's other uses I wouldn't expect to see these things be inexpensive. Also menas it will be unlikely to be viable for larger scale applications such as automotive, residential, or commercial power requirements. Still, it is kinda cool.

There is also the question of lifespan and cycling. While the liter of fluid requirement can be worked around, long term issues such as cleanliness of the proces with regards to catalyst maintenance. I'd be cautios about using the phrase "halfway there" just becuase they are using half the percentage of solution they are looking for. While they are at 15% vs 30%, they are also at 600Wh versus the 2200 claimed in the article. Granted, that's theortical maximum, but the effective use of 30% solution is also theoretical.

Re:

[timeOday (582209)]

As opposed to oil, where each gallon we pump out puts two back into the ground?

Give in to our nuclear overlords.

[xshader (201678)]

It is possible to design nuclear plants to preform electrolysis on the off-hours when the load is low. What does a nuclear power plant do? Boils lots of water. When the load is low, they can run the extra current directly thru the water that was just boiled. Yes, it is not the most efficient power conversion, but we have so much nuclear fuel available why not use it? Sometime in the future we will figure out what to do with the waste. We are a smart race. Worse case we can just launch it into the sun or in a trajectory pointing away from our planet.

Is nuclear that bad? We have known the properties of the splitting atom for decades now... we should have a good understanding of how to utilize this abundant resource. The waste is manageable. Is the waste of a coal plant manageable? Once you spew all that C0_2 and other by-products into the atmosphere there is no (sane) way to recapture it.

Nuclear is our future. Give in to our nuclear overlords.

Re:For the non-fuel cell people.

[bill_kress (99356)]

You just described every enegery storage mechanism ever created INCLUDING oil (Oil does not create energy, it simply stores solar energy collected from the sun a while back.).

The act of storing, transporting or using energy in any way involves waste (heat).

Oil & coal happen to be pretty decent storage mechanisms--relatively little waste while in storage, but somewhat difficult to recharge and creating it is quite wasteful.

So, if you are just talking about "Consuming" the energy, hydrogen is much more efficient and clean than oil. If you take into account the production of the energy as well, that's a different story. We'll have to set up some bogs and find some dinasours and wait a while before we can compare.

Re:For the non-fuel cell people.

[kfg (145172)]

We'll have to set up some bogs and find some dinasours and wait a while before we can compare.

Might I suggest looking in our various legislative bodies?

KFG

Re:

[Ironsides (739422)]

One of the major things that are holding Hydrogen Fuel Cells back is the fact that it takes more energy to extract the hyrogen from the envrionment then it produces in the fuel cell.

That may be one of the major things, but I'd say the biggest is that with existing fuel cells, you're required to have pure hydrogen as a fuel. I don't know about you, but I'd rather not have something that is likely to explode around me. This will really help out in that respect.

Re:

[ADamiani (983317)]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the capacity to go boom almost innate in any form of chemical fuel storage? Gasoline is always a spark away from exploding-- would hydrogen be any worse?

Re:yawn.....

[Yvan256 (722131)]

if I can't take bottled water through security, they sure as hell aren't going to allow this.

That's the problem, actually. Your bottled water contains hydrogen combined with oxygen! That's a really dangerous combination and could explode under the right conditions.