New Catalyst for Electrolysis Reduces Costs by 97% and Increases Hydrogen Production 400%

reply to post by spikey


Where do you think the energy to create hydrogen comes from? Thats comes mostly from fossil fuel (coal, gas or oil).

reply to post by FatherLukeDuke


What planet are you from?

You've read the OP i assume?

If you had, you would know what i am talking about.

Wind is a byproduct from the sun burning hydrogen, but we would consider it a fuel in a wind turbine.

So what's your point?

reply to post by -PLB-


What..no solar? No wind? No wave? No hydro?

FYI, you think there's no energy costs involved with fossil fuels, think again.

You think fossil fuels are efficient?

Go back and read my post, for examples of major costs, both energy and financially.

Open your mind.

Originally posted by pteridine
reply to post by cupocoffee

 

This is a losing proposition no matter how you look at it. Electricity is used to make hydrogen and 20% of the energy is lost. What will you do with the hydrogen?

What would I do with it? Burn it in my car engine, of course. The electricity is made by the alternator which runs as the engine does. Here is the system we are currently installing on our 1990 Chevy G-20 van:

HHO Generator

How about 60 mpg? With the money you save on gasoline, the electric bill doesn't seem like much, does it?

For those car people like me, you will want one of these too:

MAP / MAF Sensor Enhancer

This little device takes fuel/air control away from the factory default setting of rich so it can be adjusted from the dash.

By the way, this technology is far from new, it's like 90 years old. Suppressed like a lot of other good stuff we could use. If even half of Americans put one of these babies on their cars, Big Oil would be forced to lower prices across the board.

Originally posted by spikey
reply to post by -PLB-

 

What..no solar? No wind? No wave? No hydro?

FYI, you think there's no energy costs involved with fossil fuels, think again.

You think fossil fuels are efficient?

Go back and read my post, for examples of major costs, both energy and financially.

Open your mind.

This may be an eyeopener to you, but the current situation for generating electricity is like this:



For total energy consumption it looks like this:



So over 80% of our total energy consumption comes from fossil fuels.


[edit on 24-5-2010 by -PLB-]

There was thread on this a couple months back. Finding a more cost effective means of producing hydrogen would be huge. You may remember some buzz around the Bloom Box. It's an advanced, scalable fuel-cell technology that is currently being beta-tested at a number of large US corporations. Fuel cells create electricity directly from hydrocarbons and can use natural gas, methane and most especially hydrogen.

The huge advanatge of fuel cell technology is that it allows you to place systems where they are needed rather than transmitting power over massive, expensive and wasteful delivery systems. Being able to use hydrogen as opposed to hydro carbons would be huge in this technology.

Originally posted by spikey
reply to post by pteridine

 

Ok..water is available virtually everywhere...oil and fossil fuels are not. That's one very obvious plus over petroleum is it not?

Water doesn't need to be prospected, mined, drilled for, and refined...fossil fuels do...another barrel load of plus points over petroleum..

When collecting water, if your pump explodes..no pollution occurs to the surrounding environment, whereas oil and other fossil fuels cause absolutely catastrophic pollution WHEN we have an explosion of a spill, or a tanker crash, or a ship hijacked and scuttled...need i say Gulf? Exxon? Numerous other examples?

Hijacking a tanker of water isn't going to raise much cash for pirates either!

Burning Hydrogen is clean...I'll say that again..BURNING HYDROGEN IS CLEAN! Another plus over petroleum, i think you'll agree.

Hydrogen has a greater energy density than petroleum, in it's HHO (or Hydroxy, or Browns gas) form, it is estimated to have 300% as much energy than petroleum..another plus.

Did i mention, that water is everywhere, is non polluting, and is abundant in massive quantities?

It is also free! It pours out of the sky you know! Coupled with a solar cell, or wind turbine arrangement, the cheap, very efficient production of HHO, to drive combustion engines, or to feed into fuel cells, or to use for heating, or welding, or cutting or myriad uses, is going to virtually free for all to use..

The only negative i can see with this technology, is to shareholders and directors in fossil fuel companies...what a shame.

If i were in their shoes, i'd be removing my money from their companies, just as fast as humanly possible.

Also, contrary to popular belief, (due to propaganda mostly), Hydrogen is both safe AND easy to store.

Ever heard of Hydride? Google it, and you will see that a tank full of hydrides will very safely and efficiently store hydrogen, and deliver it when needed. When H is stored this way, it is non explosive and will only smolder like a lit cigarette.

In complete contrast to petroleum, and other fossil fuels, which are highly explosive, highly flammable, and obviously dangerous to store and transport.

Oh, i think this will be of benefit to mankind matey...if you put your thinking cap on, i think you would agree..unless you have all your money tied up in fossil fuels of course.

The thing that many people miss is the energy required to convert water to hydrogen. It is more than the hydrogen produced will provide on combustion. For a modern, high pressure electrolysis cell it is about 30% less.
You can say that you will use wind and solar for this and that would work except that the costs of that hydrogen would be very high.

Transport of hydrogen is much more expensive than transport of electricity because of the pipeline materials required and losses also occur with transport of hydrogen through leaks. If you want electrolytic hydrogen, it is better to transmit the power to the point of production.

Hdrogen's volumetric energy density is much lower than petroleum. That means that although weight is to hydrogen's advantage, it would take much larger sized fuel tanks to have the same range. As to hydrides, if you are speaking of either LiAlH4 or NaBH4, the reaction is chemical and you would need to supply hydrides at refueling stations. If you mean bulk metal hydrides then only hydrogen gas would be needed. Unfortunately, the metal required to store and significant amount would be massive. Forklifts would be good candidates because of the required counterweights.

Hydrogen is not a good energy storage medium for vehicles, either IC or fuel cells.

reply to post by autowrench


"Brown's gas" appears to be a stoichiometric mix of hydrogen and oxygen from an electrolysis cell. It may change some combustion characteristics of an IC engine that will allow a leaner burn in older engines, which would enhance fuel economy with some reduction in power. In newer engines it won't do much.
Using alternator power that would otherwise be wasted when the battery is fully charged is always a good idea. Modern hybrid vehicles take advantage of this.
You should consider a thread that will allow you to explain the details of the installation, answer questions, and provide mileage data [with and without the unit being used] that will give ATS members a chance to watch your experiment as it happens.

Originally posted by pteridine
The thing that many people miss is the energy required to convert water to hydrogen. It is more than the hydrogen produced will provide on combustion. For a modern, high pressure electrolysis cell it is about 30% less.

But if some scientists could come up with an electrolysis process that's like 400% more efficient then that would no longer be true, would it?

Originally posted by cupocoffee
But if some scientists could come up with an electrolysis process that's like 400% more efficient then that would no longer be true, would it?

Possible with more efficient polymers and fuel cells raised to plasma states, yet we still have to use what we have now.

Originally posted by cupocoffee

But if some scientists could come up with an electrolysis process that's like 400% more efficient then that would no longer be true, would it?

How do you calculate something that is 400% more efficient than 80%? Would you claim 320% efficiency?
You might want to check up on the laws of thermodynamics and perpetual motion machines.

Originally posted by pteridine
How do you calculate something that is 400% more efficient than 80%? Would you claim 320% efficiency?
You might want to check up on the laws of thermodynamics and perpetual motion machines.

You can't look directly at efficiency for overall production, which seems the obvious thing to keep in mind for something said tongue-in-cheek.

Solar energy may seem less efficient over time, yet we can harvest that energy.

Originally posted by pteridine
You might want to check up on the laws of thermodynamics and perpetual motion machines.

It's not a perpetual motion machine if you're using water and the hydrogen stored in it as fuel.

Originally posted by pteridine
If you read the link it says "The result is an electrolyzer running as a full cell at 1000 milliamp per cm2 at 80% energy efficiency."

What this means is that the inventor claims an improved process by losing less energy than conventional processes of electrolysis. All of these processes require more energy input than hydrogen output. If you burned the hydrogen produced by 100kWHours input power, you would get the heat from 80kWhours out. You would lose 20kWh in the conversion process.
.

"It woin't be used for the benefit of mankind because it doesn't really benefit mankind"...Ohh, that's bs. This technology is fully compatible with solar power production. So why does a fractional loss off output power matter when the source is FREE??

Originally posted by UndergroundMilitia
"It woin't be used for the benefit of mankind because it doesn't really benefit mankind"...Ohh, that's bs. This technology is fully compatible with solar power production. So why does a fractional loss off output power matter when the source is FREE??

The technology is solar power production. The problem is in what it is being used for. If you can make electricity, why waste it on hydrogen production? Why not just put it on the grid and offset some CO2?

FYI, the harvesting of the free source is not free.

Originally posted by dzonatas

Originally posted by audas
Sorry but the idea of transporting hydrogen for fuel is utterly derisible - it can never, ever happen. It amazes me that people even consider it.

We have water everywhere, and hydrogen is part of water, so it is transportable in other forms than pure hydrogen gas.

Hydrogen on the other hand is also incredibly dangerous - to transport it at equivalent rations to petrol in needs to be compressed to 10,000 pounds per square inch

Hydrogen compression techniques are usually touted by Big Oil companies that want to continue the traditional gas tank consumer market.

The only hope for hydrogen is in a mixed supply economy of de-centralized delivery and local production. Even then - incredibly dangerous.

This decentralization has already started. It's why we have hybrids on the road now.

You need a massive amount of energy to extract hydrogen from water - how do you propose we ship the water around and then extract it ? Where does thats energy come from - thats right fossil or nuclear. And to build nuclear plants -which take around 20 years from planning to completion - you need MASSIVE amounts of fossil fuel.

So you are burning fossil fuel to transport and then extract hydrogen - wow.

Originally posted by ANNED
If you use the hydrogen to make butanol a liquid fuel then run a fuel cell with it you eliminate the dangers of hydrogen gas.
peswiki.com...:Butanol

Butanol can be used in internal combustion engines, fuel cells, mixed with bio diesel to increase range an for a cleaner burn of bio diesels.

All these are cleaner then gasoline and carbon neutral..plus they do not affect the food supply like ethanol.

Why do people insist on using a technology of hydrogen that is dangerous when we can get the same results without directly using hydrogen.

What ?

You have just mixed and matched at will - Butanol from what ?

If it is not coming from a BIO resource then it ha no offset value - it is just emitting green house gases.

Originally posted by audas
You need a massive amount of energy to extract hydrogen from water

Please, post a source to backup your claim.

Here is one of the less expensive ways to transport hydrogen besides water:

AlumiFuel Cartridges: Portable Dry Hydrogen

Originally posted by pteridine

Originally posted by UndergroundMilitia
"It woin't be used for the benefit of mankind because it doesn't really benefit mankind"...Ohh, that's bs. This technology is fully compatible with solar power production. So why does a fractional loss off output power matter when the source is FREE??

The technology is solar power production. The problem is in what it is being used for. If you can make electricity, why waste it on hydrogen production? Why not just put it on the grid and offset some CO2?

FYI, the harvesting of the free source is not free.

The sky is the limit, you could use solar power for a plethora of applications and not a single one is a waste if it can be applied in a cheap fashion to everyday life. Furthermore, I would focus more upon self-sustainability before I would even consider supplying the grid. The idea is to be off the grid, not to be continually pounded by ever-increasing electricity and fuel costs and we should be a bit more hesitant before subscribing to globist "CO2" rhetoric.

True enough, the cost of harvesting energy isn't free but the fact is, technologies like solar energy and hydrogen production are suppressed and the costs associated with hardware is artificially inflated to the point that the average person has little to no chance of affording the components, much less being able to learn and understand the principles of such technologies without hands on training. That's the real problem, it's not our CO2 emissions.

Originally posted by UndergroundMilitia

The sky is the limit, you could use solar power for a plethora of applications and not a single one is a waste if it can be applied in a cheap fashion to everyday life. Furthermore, I would focus more upon self-sustainability before I would even consider supplying the grid. The idea is to be off the grid, not to be continually pounded by ever-increasing electricity and fuel costs and we should be a bit more hesitant before subscribing to globist "CO2" rhetoric.

True enough, the cost of harvesting energy isn't free but the fact is, technologies like solar energy and hydrogen production are suppressed and the costs associated with hardware is artificially inflated to the point that the average person has little to no chance of affording the components, much less being able to learn and understand the principles of such technologies without hands on training. That's the real problem, it's not our CO2 emissions.

Centralized power generation has the major benefit that any type of pollution can be located outside populated areas, be it horizon pollution or air pollution. Solar and wind power are pretty unreliable as energy supply as it will dependent on the weather. So we will always require a power grid anyhow.

The whole idea of using hydrogen as fuel has totally nothing to do with how we generate energy in the first place. It is merely a method of storing the energy we already generated. And it seems to me it is not the most efficient method.

But I have to say that I am not that well informed. Does anyone have an overview that compares methods to store energy for daily use (mainly cars)? So subjects like efficiency, cost, weight and pollution should be compared face to face between hydrogen methods and battery types, and any other method to store energy. In my opinion this is the whole essence of this debate, not how energy is generated.