The following is a reprint from an article in the Feb. 14 ,'04 Albuquerque Tribune
Combine this information (potential) with the last page (10) in the "Earth helps space,..." thread, a connecting article, on the same page, about the cost of upcoming electrical power line infrastructure maintenance, and the concept of a small commuter hybrid vehicle charging both it's own batteries, and the homes, the total amount of heat/CO2 stopped from being pushed into the ecosystem, the jobs created, and the rep. the US gains through "globalization", (etc.) and you get an idea how important this can be.
Reactor Produces Hydrogen (and Electricity/Heat) from Ethanol
by Lee Bowman, Scripps Howard News Service
Minnesota scientists said they developed the first reactor capable of producing hydrogen from a renewable fuel source -ethanol-, using a device built around an ordinary engines fuel injector.
"For hydrogen to become economical, we need a safe, portable, liquid fuel," said Larry Schmidt, a professor of chemical engineering at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities. "Ethanol is one of the best available."
His team reported Friday in the journal "Science" that a self-heating catalyst produces hydrogen from ethanol, water, and air at about 60% efficiency; generating electricity at about 4 cents per kilowatt hour.
Although Hydrogen is by far the most common known element in the universe, no free hydrogen exists, its all locked up with other elements. The major stumbling block to shifting to a hydrogen fueled economy has been that it costs four times more than the next
least expensive fuel, and has to be extracted from fossil fuels (natural gas or coal).
Hydrogen is now produced by -exclusively- by a process called steam reforming, which requires very high temperatures and large furnaces, consuming a lot of energy and suitable only for large refineries Schmidt said.
"Hydrogen is hard to come by," he explained. "You can't pipe it long distances. There are a few hydrogen fueling stations, but they strip hydrogen from methane/natural gas on site, and it increases carbon dioxide emissions, so it is only a short term solution until renewable hydrogen is available."
Ethanol, produced from corn, is already used in car engines, But as a hydrogen source for a fuel cell, the process would be three times more efficient,* " Schmidt said. A bushel of corn would yield three times as much power if its energy were channeled into hydrogen
fuel cells, rather than burned with gasoline.*
"We can potentially capture 50% of the energy stored in sugar (corn), whereas converting sugar to ethanol and burning ethanol in a car would only harvest 20% of the energy," Schmidt said.*
The difference says researcher ---Gregg Deluga, ---first author of the paper---,
is that all the water needs to be removed from ethanol before it goes into the gas tank, while the new process actually strips hydrogen from water, producing more hydrogen than ethanol would alone.
The invention uses a catalyst made from rhodium and ceria that heats up to temperature of nearly 1,300 deg. F and coverts the ethanol, water, and oxygen vaporized by the fuel injector into hydrogen and carbon dioxide. The whole reaction takes only 50 milliseconds, and is much cleaner than ethanol combustion in an engines.
However, the carbon dioxide in the mix means that the hydrogen won't work in the --high power-- fuel cells being used to power cars (on their own), although cells might eventually be adapted.
Schmidt said the team is still working to improve the process so it will yield even more hydrogen molecules for each ethanol molecule.
The hydrogen the scientists have been able to make thus far could work on some fuel cells. One application of the process might be in remote areas where it is not feasible to run power lines. where a unit small enough to hold in your hand could generate on kilowatt of power /hr. almost enough to supply an adverse home.
* + The potential of incorporating a Sterling heat recovery engine (on this size of a conversion) to boost the total electrical energy recovered per volume of fuel (to 75%{?}).
Welcome to the revolution.
