Buckyballs Can Store Concentrated Hydrogen

Pickens brings news that researchers from Rice University have discovered that it's possible to store hydrogen inside buckyballs. Hydrogen can be an excellent power source, but it is notoriously difficult to store. The buckyballs can contain up to 8% of their weight in hydrogen, and they are strong enough to hold it at a density that rivals the center of Jupiter. "Using a computer model, Yakobson's research team has tracked the strength of each atomic bond in a buckyball and simulated what happened to the bonds as more hydrogen atoms were packed inside. Yakobson said the model promises to be particularly useful because it is scalable, that is it can calculate exactly how much hydrogen a buckyball of any given size can hold, and it can also tell scientists how overstuffed buckyballs burst open and release their cargo."

A point worth making-

...and they are strong enough to hold it at a density that rivals the center of Jupiter.

Something the summary doesn't make clear is that Buckyballs are much more convenient in portability terms, as compared with Jupiter.

Re:A point worth making-

Also for those of you more familiar with the US measurement system (rather than the SI units): The pressures we're talking about here is almost 200 million library of congresses per VW Beetle.

Exotic pressures

In the nuclear fuels field, we deal with really exotic temperatures and pressures in materials whose bulk properties might be only two or less orders of magnitude from standard temperature and pressure. Did you know that there are people sitting around, calculating the pressure of an individual helium atom in a crystal lattice? The pressures that arise put planetary cores to shame.

Re:

as much hydrogen as the centre Jupiter,

So what you're saying is that you don't understand the difference between density and volume.

Not true! They will be VERY convenient for a bit.

While I haven't run the math, I think if you compress the hydrogen in Jupiter's core down to briefcase size you will find that it will keep going and form a nice little singularity....very easy to fit in a briefcase....shortly before it EATS the briefcase and then you...

Back of envelope math:

One earth mass will form a singularity at around 10 CC (or so I've heard)

Jupiter's core is about 10 earth masses (or so I've heard)

Ergo one Jupiter core will form a singularity at about 100 CC.

A small briefcase will hold 100 CC plus a little extra.

Only one questions remains...how will we get the core of Jupiter to LOOK like the report I was supposed to read last night?

Re:Not true! They will be VERY convenient for a bi

One thing is that theoretics will blow singularities out the window. One theory holds that Jupiter's core is a solid mass of crystallized carbon. Yep, you can guess what that is, Diamond. Another theory, with a more stable foundation, is that hydrogen at that pressure and temperature, becomes metallic. Essentially within your little buckyball, you would have a sphere of hydrogen metal. If your buckyball can handle > 100GPa,(over one million atmospheres) then the hydrogen atoms will undergo a phase change and become metallic.

If this is practical and it's energy potential can be tapped, we'll have at our fingertips, an unlimited power source that won't kill you with radiation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metallic_hydrogen [wikipedia.org]

Re:

...If your buckyball can handle > 100GPa,(over one million atmospheres)...

If your buckyball can handle > 100GPa,(over one million atmospheres), then you should just be able to inject a few under a piston, release the pressure and use the released pressure to drive your engine.

Re:Not true! They will be VERY convenient for a bi

If this is practical and it's energy potential can be tapped, we'll have at our fingertips, an unlimited power source that won't kill you with radiation.

It astonishes me how often /.ers forget the first and second law of thermodynamics. You'll only have the unlimited source of energy after you expended the same amount of energy (and more) generating and compressing the hydrogen to get it into the buckyballs in the first place.

Wake up world. Hydrogen isn't a source of energy any more than capacitors are. It's a way to store energy.

Re:Not true! They will be VERY convenient for a bi

Well, this seems to be purely theoretical work about whether buckyballs *could* contain dense hydrogen, not how to achieve it. However, I can think of two very interesting possibilities, energy-wise, if it could be achieved.

1) Superconductivity: Metallic hydrogen is a superconductor. Not sure how that would work conducting current through the shells, though. While just being a superconductor doesn't give you energy, it makes it easier to transmit energy.

2) Fusion is all about the combination of the density of your targets and energy of your collisions. This is some impressive hydrogen density being discussed.

Hmmm.

it can also tell scientists how overstuffed buckyballs burst open and release their cargo."
Well, if these are being burst open, then it means that these have to be built AND loaded each time, and then disposed. So now, we are going to either break apart water (cool, but inefficient), or strip H from fossil fuel (efficient, but bad news for the CO2). Then we are going to build bucky balls, store the hydrogen in it (at 8% volume), sell you the buck ball, your car will magically break the balls (most likely pressure or heat), this will power either an ICE (very low efficiency) or a fuel cell/electric motor (high efficiency, but high cost due to fuel cell).

Of course, we could just take the electricity and charge a battery and then run an electic motor, all at more than double (or even triple) the efficiency and probably half to one third the costs.

That's nice and all...

...but each burst buckyball is 60 carbon atoms floating around in your fuel. Aren't you right back to "hydrocarbons" if you burn this fuel, and won't the carbon poison fuel cell membranes? It's a cool trick _iff_ you can strip the carbon out efficiently before the hydrogen is used.

Re:

No prob. The issue here is finding an (energy-)efficient / easy way to make the buckyballs store and release hydrogen. But once the hydrogen is released, I can't imagine it would be hard to separate 2-atom hydrogen molecules from 60-atom buckyball molecul

So All We Really Need...

So all we really need is a really big buckyball, and we've solved the hydrogen storage problem.

Of course, we still need to figure out how to get the soft gooey hydrogen inside the chocolatey pocket of the buckyball, especially at "center of jupiter" pressures. Maybe the folks at Cadbury might reveal their secret. We'll also need to figure out how to get the hydrogen out once we're ready to use it.

Clearly I'm missing something

An alternative to carbon-fuel which requires storing that alternative in carbon?

Once you crack those buckeyballs open to get the H out, the C has to go somewhere, right?

What am I missing, here?

8%? Why, that's more than half as good as octane!

Otherwise known as gasoline.

Read the Warning...

Pregnant women, the elderly and children under 10 should avoid prolonged exposure to Hydrogen Filled Buckyball.

Caution: Hydrogen Filled Buckyball may suddenly accelerate to dangerous speeds.

Hydrogen Filled Buckyball contains a liquid core, which, if exposed due to rupture, should not be touched, inhaled, or looked at.

Do not use Hydrogen Filled Buckyball on concrete.

Discontinue use of Hydrogen Filled Buckyball if any of the following occurs: Itching, Vertigo, Dizziness, Tingling in extremities, Loss of balance or coordination, Slurred speech, Temporary Blindness, Profuse sweating, Heart Palpitations.

If Hydrogen Filled Buckyball begins to smoke, get away immediately. Seek shelter and cover head.

Hydrogen Filled Buckyball may stick to certain types of skin.

When not in use, Hydrogen Filled Buckyball should be returned to its special container and kept under refrigeration... Failure to do so relieves the makers of Hydrogen Filled Buckyball, Wacky Products Incorporated, and its parent company Global Chemical Unlimited, of any and all liability.

If Hydrogen Filled Buckyball should become soiled, wipe gently with a soft cloth moistened with sulfuric acid.

Ingredients of Hydrogen Filled Buckyball include an unknown glowing substance which fell to Earth, presumably from outer space.

Hydrogen Filled Buckyball has been shipped to our troops in Saudi Arabia and is also being dropped by our warplanes on Iraq.

Do not taunt Hydrogen Filled Buckyball.

Hydrogen Filled Buckyball comes with a lifetime guarantee.
Hydrogen Filled Buckyball. ACCEPT NO SUBSTITUTES!

That's Nice

Could densely packed hydrogen be encouraged to fuse somehow? Perhaps with some sort of "laser"?

The rest of the press release

"Professor, that's amazing! The buckyballs will bind the hydrogen so well that it won't leak out of the container?"

"That's correct. We're very pleased with these results."

"And to release the hydrogen to be able to use it, you just crack open the buckyballs, right?"

"I beg your pardon? No, no, it's bound extremely tightly to the carbon matrix. That's what we've developed, a way to bind hydrogen."

"But to actually use the hydrogen, professor, you have to get it back out. How do you get it out of the buckyballs?"

"Ah, well, that's something that we'll address in year 4 of the grant."

"Which is...?"

"2011."

Don't you mean "could" store hydrogen?

Let's RTFA a bit: "'Based on our calculations, it appears that some buckyballs are capable of holding volumes of hydrogen so dense as to be almost metallic,' said lead researcher Boris Yakobson"..." If a feasible way to produce hydrogen-filled buckyballs is developed, Yakobson said, it might be possible to store them as a powder."

What a difference one word can make in a summary. News flash, "Miss Universe can have sex with Slashdot users! According to simulations conducted with fold-out pictures in Randy's basement..um...research center"

The simulation work is pretty cool, the headline and summary can and does mislead the reader.

How about fusion instead of fuel cells...

Everyone assumes that these will be used for fuel cells, but why not use them for fusion?

I know one technique has been laser fusion. Target several lasers at one point and they reinforce each other. Then drop in a tiny sphere of fusion fuel surrounded by glass of plastic and the lasers cause the sphere to exploded both outward and in which increases the pressure enough to cause fusion.

This concept has to be more efficient with a VERY high pressure fuel. So we give our packed buckyballs a charge and electromagnetically shoot them into the center of the lasers and POOF you have fusion..

Just a thought, any comments?

H, a power source

Hydrogen can be an excellent power source

Hydrogen is more of a battery than a fuel and it is ALWAYS by DEFINITION going to have negative ER/EI. Why? Because the energy required to pull hydrogen out of water or methane or petroleum is going to be greater than the energy you get from burning the hydrogen. What the "hydrogen economy" seeks to do is to protect the sunken cost of the suburbs, and the sunken costs of the automotive infrastructure, both of which are joined at the hip and are completely unsustainable. It's a fools errand and will fail. There is also the not inconsiderable energy that goes into making the bucky balls, etc.

Face it: gigs up. Game over. Prepare to slowly powerdown. [google.ca]

RS

Here's How They Work (Informative!)

Okay, no one in a modded-up post on this story understands the concept. Buckyballs look like soot. You have a tank filled with this soot in your car. Then you flow very high pressure hydrogen gas over them for awhile (this has been done for years with carbon nanotubes, which offer more storage but because they only confine in 2 dimensions, unlike the balls, they don't provide the capillary forces necessary to make this easy). Hydrogen then adsorbs (notice ADsorbs, not ABsorbs) onto the inner surfaces of the Buckyballs. Capillary forces, like those that cause liquid to be drawn into a straw, allow the hydrogens to live essentially as liquids inside the balls, meaning that when you remove the high pressure hydrogen flow, the hydrogren in the buckyballs doesn't all immediately fly out. Hydrogen leaks out of the balls slowly, becoming a gas and maintaining a roughly constant pressure in the tank, and you then siphon off the hydrogen that you want to power your car. You can control the leakage rate by changing the temperature.

You then reuse the Buckyballs by flowing hydrogen gas over them when they're empty. They're 100% reusable storage, not tiny gas tanks. Someone mod this up so that the dozens of "oh nos, Buckyballs hurt teh environments" posts go away.

Re:Here's How They Work (Informative!)

You will reach an equilibrium pressure in your tank at which adsorption and desorption occur at the same speed. The big question here is kinetics anyway. How fast does the hydrogen adsorb, and how fast can it be released? The whole idea only becomes practical if you can "fill your tank" in a reasonable time and with decent equipment requirements, lets say 5 min at 2000 psi. And the release has to be fast enough to allow an engine to generate 100 kW or so without depleting the hydrogen flow (or needing a m^3 of tank).

Re:

Like it or not, percent weight is the common metric to compare hydrogen storage methods. Around 6% by weight, the energy/mass ratio of molecular hydrogen is in the ballpark of gasoline, so 6% is the target you hear all the hydrogen storage scientists talki

Re:8% weight is a bad way to put it

How about this, then:

Store the hydrogen at atmospheric pressure in a large, oblong balloon-like vessel, and strap your vehicle underneath it. You not only have a fuel source, but you have buoyancy as well and can soar above the traffic. We'd finally have those flying cars they've been promising us.

Oh, the humanity!