Buckyballs Can Store Concentrated Hydrogen 193
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."
Re:8% weight is a bad way to put it (Score:1, Interesting)
Are you thinking of hydrogen molecules or deuterium atoms? It's hard to tell. The former would be good for burning but hard to get the release energy, the latter for fusion and easier to get the balls to open up.
Exotic pressures (Score:5, Interesting)
That's Nice (Score:3, Interesting)
Not true! They will be VERY convenient for a bit. (Score:4, Interesting)
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:8% weight is a bad way to put it (Score:3, Interesting)
As someone who does model calculations involving buckyballs myself, this is a very intriguing calculation. But if I showed this to my buddies down the hall who do fullerene chemistry, they would have a few questions about how they are supposed to pack that much H2 in a fullerene and then scale the process industrially.
How about fusion instead of fuel cells... (Score:4, Interesting)
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?
Re:Not true! They will be VERY convenient for a bi (Score:5, Interesting)
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]
H, a power source (Score:3, Interesting)
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
Re:Hmmm. (Score:2, Interesting)
Either way you slice it, the weight of a container is always much greater than the weight of the compressed gas within it. In fact the best weight I've seen for a compressed hydrogen container is 6% of the container's (including the hydrogen) overall weight. This buckeyball is about 7.5% (8/108). That's a fairly significant increase in storage capacity.
Leaks (Score:3, Interesting)
What is the half life of the hydrogen storage in this system?
So, if the buckyball left the factory last month, how much H2 content will it still have? Once it decays down to atmospheric temperature, it does me no practical good.
Re:Not true! They will be VERY convenient for a bi (Score:1, Interesting)