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."

Hmmm.

[WindBourne]

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.

Hydrogen?

[mlwmohawk]

All this rush to store hydrogen, why not find a way to extract it WITHOUT creating CO2. Currently all commercial processes for extracting hydrogen use fossil fuels to do so.

Maybe solar and/or wind will be used, but the efficiency is still low.

Re:Hmmm.

[Anonymous Coward]

especially if you put this on a big scale: 8% of its own weight? that's like saying a 100 kg H-fuel-tank can store only 8 kg of H. even the most robust and durable tanks surely have a much higher efficiency - without the added difficulty of having to get the H out of the bucky ball.

this research is nice to know, but completely impractical.

That's nice and all...

[Muad'Dave]

...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.

Clearly I'm missing something

[hanshotfirst]

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!

[John Hasler]

Otherwise known as gasoline.

Re:Hmmm.

[mudetroit]

I am in know way saying that this is a perfect solution, but a carrying method for using hydrogen as a fuel is a better long term alternative for us then batteries storing electrial energy.

The fundamental problem with batteries is that sooner or later the chemical process that you are taking advantage of breaks down and you are left with a battery that no longer functions. As most batteries, actually all the ones I am aware of, are made with particularly noxious chemical compounds now you have the problem of what to do with the no longer functional battery. Let's review the common options:
1.) Burn it - Not so great for the air.
2.) Toss it in a landfill - Sooner or later even the best toxic landfills develop leaks. Not so great for the land or water.
3.) Recycle it - Typically involves large amounts of energy with some nasty chemical by products. Again not so great for land, water, or air depending non where the byproducts go.

Hydrogen, unless someone can present evidence to the contrary, almost has to be our portable energy source of the future. And if you consider fusion reactors as our best fixed source of energy then it is really the energy source in that case as well.

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

[ArcherB]

...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:That's nice and all...

[Farmer Crack-Ass]

The biggest expense of nuclear power is not the fuel, but the extreme initial capital cost for building the plant. Fuel is actually a pretty small fraction of the cost for nuclear power - the price of fuel could double and the KWh cost would rise very little.

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

[Rei]

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.

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

[amRadioHed]

Pedantically speaking oil isn't an energy source either, it's just a storage medium for solar energy.

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

[xtal]

We have, already, an unlimited source of energy in the Sun. The real problem is how to transport and condense that energy into useful-to-us forms..