capturing hydrogen

ive just about finished my latest work. an electrolysis run by a bicycle and solar panels. all for the sake of some hydrogen, that i cant capture... yet

i am currently in a designing slump and im out of ideas on how to capture my well earned hydrogen and pressurize it in a bottle any and all ideas thoughts and links on this subject will be greatly appreciated.

 

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Perhaps first you can explain what the collected H2 is going to be used for.

Pressurising hydrogen could become a very dangerous and short-lived pastime.

If your idea as an fuel supplement in a car engine then it may be possible to get exactly the same gains by adding a small amount of methane/NG to the mix...

 

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High Pressure Hydrogen Compressors

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http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sour..._OHfBw&usg=AFQjCNHvODNZiE0slpcQF_-d-eDT4XcFgw

 

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no fun

i was planning to use hydrogen as an energy storage for solar power and my bike. once you have it stored in whatever containment vessel you so choose, you run it through essentially a reverse electrolysis creating electricity and water as a byproduct. in other words i have all the components to make hydrogen , and use it as a clean energy source. i just dont have a method of storing it my self. once i have this one little piece taken care of it will be a closed circuit, free energy from the sun stored as hydrogen and used at my will with no waste whatsoever muahahaha!

also that hydro pac looks like it would be easily recreatable for small scale testing though i dont think i would ever need to go that high on the psi
i shall keep posted

 

Just keep in mind that what your calling "reverse electrolysis" is actually a fuel cell - and those little rascals are VERY expensive.

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@Snowfox
Just a word of advice, which you can accept or reject as you wish.
Don't do any of these experiments indoors.
Hydrogen, as you know, is very light. It will accumulate at ceiling level.
It needs very little to ignite it and will explode violently.

 

Did electrolysis when I was a kid with the water filled tray and the water filled milk jug, run it until the jug is full of hydrogen then light it to watch it blow up. Fun stuff indeed.

I keep hoping the domestic auto industry gets going on fuel cells so I can scrounge one up at the junk yard to play with. There is a guy out there somewhere ( I saw the story online recently) who has been doing exactly this with solar and hydrogen...the tanks take up a lot of his yard, but he is a happy camper.

Anybody got a link to a 'how to' on building a fuel cell? That might be a fun project too.

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How to Make a Fuel Cell-Powered Car

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sour...m_z0BQ&usg=AFQjCNEIELt32gNHzUClDZaKTAEtJ5mHeQ

 

Thanks, Cosmic.

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So you are talking about running a IC engine of the stuff then?

For context I think you should ask yourself 'to what end am I doing this?
For a start, to get your bike to run off pure H2 you will need to change the bike's carbonation - this maybe straightforward or not. As mention by another poster their is little sense in going the 'fuel-cell' method as to be efficient and have any useful power output they will need to be professionally constructed & buying one is very expensive.

Second how many kW/h equivalent of H2 do you think your panels can split? Remember the electrical conversion to H2 will be at best no more than 50% efficient (likely much less).

The bottom line is if you want to experiment with making a H2 bubbler - for fun - then do so (rem: safety first!). If you want to use solar panels to save the planet and your bills, use the electricity directly - either charge a battery bank or tie-in to the electricity grid (more initial expense due to inverter, etc - maybe worth it in the long-term depending on the scale of installation).

If you want to (also) save the environment/your cash when running your motorbike, then if you have a Natural Gas supply where you are, you can convert the bike to use it instead.

Making efficiency savings is not just about understanding energy and where it comes from/is available, it is also about understanding what 'fuels' are suitable for what applications.

Without mass produced, cheap fuel-cell vehicles becoming available, Hydrogen is a rubbish 'fuel' (more like a chemical battery as not freely available in nature) for automotive application. Equally, FC cars are useless without a H2 delivery infrastructure (IE, in most filling stations).

 

i apologize for not being clear about that, im not running the bike on hydrogen. the bike is fixed to be staionary linked to an electric motor to produce electricity like something out of a bad movie. that and my alkali fuel cell bank is already constructed and ready to go minus the platinum catalyst. once i have that im ready to produce electricity through hydrogen

 

rest assured im taking all the precautions with this it wont even be stored inside without me flushing the lines let alone running it indoors

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Okay... I think I follow...(?)

So you're going:
Pedal-power - to electric - to hydrogen - back to electric (at some later point).

Assuming you can construct a home-made H2-fuel-cell that can return anything better than single figure efficiency (which I very much doubt) - what is the point point of all this exactly?

Can't you just use a Car-battery for storage?

 

Yes, he could.

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And as you pointed out, it would be MUCH more efficient !!

Personally, I think the whole business is just an excuse to tinker around with hydrogen, which is OK too.

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I've always been one that likes to experiment myself - even with *no* practical expectations whatsoever - not even remotely.

 

I also.

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