Check out the technology of Powerballs: http://www.powerball.net

Powerball fuel pelletsTM store and produce hydrogen on demand. Each gallon of powerball fuel pellets produces hundreds of gallons of hydrogen upon contact with water on an as-needed basis. Powerball fuel pelletsTM offer a safe, compact, and inexpensive alternative to the delivery, storage and use of compressed or liquid hydrogen for a wide range of applications which require a clean source of hydrogen.

I'm liking this but does anyone know whats going on with this technology? It's very intresting. Google (http://www.google.com/search?num=30&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&safe=off&q=hydrogen+Powerballs) has spit out good results after a search I conducted to figure out information about these powerballs.

Natex Corporation Announces Department of Energy Report On Powerball Fuel Pellets (http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/11-16-1999/0001076542&EDATE=)

If you haven't heard, this is looking to be the biggest thing since 1-step cake mix :D - I just can't see ping-pong sized pellets flowing willingly through tubes into tanks of water... well, now that I think about it, the water would act as a buffer, wouldn't it? :confused: Just like oil in a engine.

Anyway, toss some feedback myway

I just can't see ping-pong sized pellets flowing willingly through tubes into tanks of water

Add water to the pellets, not pellets to the water :-)

It looks very interesting, but I'd be interested in energy efficiency.
How much heat loss is involved in dehydrating the Sodium Hydroxide?

I'm also a bit concerned about safety. Is an NaOH spill worse than a petroleum spill? What if a bunch of loaded pellets fall in a river?

Also the logistics in transporting the waste NaOH back to the source... it's an extra shipping cost, which seems to be missing from the comparisons at powerball.net.

My thoughts?
Sounds great, more investigation needed (like an active production and recycling facility together with a Hydrogen burning power station) to establish true economic factors and test safety issues.

The returning of spent pellets is parallel with that of the truck returning to re-fuel. Its all good on that front.
The same truck that drops off new pellets picks up old ones, and when it goes back to get new pellets it drops off the old ones.

If loaded pellets fell into a river they'd have to pick them up. The pellets after being coated with polyethylene, are waterproof. The Powerballs need to be cut open, by the powerball tank, then they can react to water since they were sealed waterproof before.. Get it?

Yeah, the production efficency is a little vauge on the end of how much heat is needed to dehydrate Sodium Hydroxide but seriously, the rest of the information is there.

See this page for the entire process: http://www.powerball.net/process/index.html

Proceed through the steps (buttons on the left hand side)

Thank you, Sir! You make good points.

The hydrogen stored in the power balls are made from natural gas which does not make it a infinite or recycled power source, instead it just another form of fossil fuel, even less efficient in fact.

The hydrogen stored in the Powerballs is not made from natural gas -- it is made from NaOH, which is converted using heat from burning Natural Gas. Since it is heat they are after, they are not limited to Natural Gas, if you read the process carefully you will see that they also can use Solar Energy and Wind Energy.

Powerballs are an infinite power source because they are recycled over and over again. Get it?

See this page for more information on how NaH is made:
http://www.powerball.net/process/nah.html

and what makes it competivie againts borax and/or metal-doped cabon nano-fibers?

Hell I dunno, I'm not their consumer-relations rep.
Those 2 technologies you refer to speak for themselves. I've never even heard of them, so they must not be too popular.
I didn't make it as far as looking into borax or metal-doped cabon nanp-fibers. I stopped at this.

In any case look to: http://www.powerball.net/compare/index.html

Also, why do you tell me how it (if at all) is copetitive against other technologies... scratch that, nevermind. I don't want to hear it. You couldn't even get the part about the natural gas right, I'm not going to trust you to tell me something I don't know.

Really then? you don't know much about competing strategies for hydrogen economy.

Borax:
http://www.millenniumcell.com/news/hod.html
stores ~10% of it weight in hydrogen

Personally I vouch for Direct Alcohol Fuel Cells (DAFC or DMFC, DEFC), in that ethanol provide 15% of it weight in hydrogen.

A don’t like the hydrogen economy because no matter what the process is not energy positive, energy must be used to make hydrogen and store it in any medium, Biofuels on the other hand have been made energy positive from farm to the pump,

When they get started with the hydrogen economy they create a loop. Make hydrogen using Hydrogen Power plants... DUH!

If not that then they can always use Wind, Solar, or Hydroelectric power sources to get stuff moving. The other method they were thinking about was using Nuclear plants souly for powering Hydrogen creation processes.

Anyway this thread is about people's thoughts on the technology of powerballs. Not a broad view on your beliefs.

Hydrogen needs to be made from electric power and a source ideally water, getting the infrastructure to produce that kind of power is not going to happen over night and not without great force. I disagree with power ball as a storage medium for hydrogen for cars because it is a solid and not a liquid, this requires more drastic changes to a fuel distribution systems and car design to store these power balls.

if you want to have a argument about hydrogen power in general go here:
http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=23556&perpage=20&pagenumber=1

I'm not looking for an argument about hydrogen. I just am looking for input about Powerballs.

You REALLY need to read through that site. Even though powerballs are solid they are treated as a liquid because they are tiny balls in water...

And what 'infrastructure' are you talking about for making Hydrogen? Did I say they would be pulling power from any 'infrastructure' to make Hydrogen? No. I said they use Natural Gas, Solar Power and Wind Power. What 'infrastructure' are you talking about? :bugeye:

The electric infrastructure, we at present do not have enough electricity to produce enough hydrogen to power all the cars, trucks, train, ect in the nation, Getting that kind of power would pentuple (X5) are electricity demands and power plants of any form are not made cheaply and instantly.

Do you actually think that it would require more power to create Powerballs than it does to turn raw petroleum into gasoline? :eek: Think about that for a moment.

hell yes! you make hydrogen from water!

Aww man, we're not making Hydrogen from water!!

The Powerball process begins with waste NaOH (Sodium Hydroxide), which is an abundant waste from several industries. The NaOH is first heated up to remove the Oxygen, leaving NaH (Sodium Hydride) which can be pelletized and coated to create Powerballs.


It's a waste which we heat up to remove the oxygen.
Do you see WATER mentioned anywhere in the above statement?

ok then how do you get the engery to convert that waste, is there enough NaOH to supply all the nations needs?

Originally posted by WellCookedFetus
ok then how do you get the engery to convert that waste
:bugeye: - I already told you this. They're site listed Natural Gas (burn it), Solar Power (use the sun to heat it) and Wind Power (heat it with electricty).

Originally posted by WellCookedFetus
is there enough NaOH to supply all the nations needs?
I'm not sure about this one. They said that the waste comes from several industries so maybe, if they list what industries the NaOH comes fron, I could answer this question. Probably something really common, like the creation & recycling of plastic - or something of that nature.

The NaOH is a closed cycle.
The NaH is converted back to NaOH as the powerballs are spent. NaOH is readily available as industry waste for the initial setup and loss replacement.

ah so it recyclable well then that solve the amount problem, just like NaBH4; but again there so no easy solution for the input energy, like I have repeat over and over again we would need to multiply our energy usage just to produce enough of this stuff.

Yeah the intial input would need to be quite large and buffered but it could work.

Ya not at the funding rate for the hydrogen economy that it is now.