Scientists Find New Way To Store Hydrogen Fuel

Science Daily.com ^ | January 7, 2004 | University Of Chicago

[aculeus]

University of Chicago scientists have proposed a new method for storing hydrogen fuel in this week's online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The lack of practical storage methods has hindered the more widespread use of hydrogen fuels, which are both renewable and environmentally clean. The most popular storage methods-liquid hydrogen and compressed hydrogen-require that the fuel be kept at extremely low temperatures or high pressures. But the University of Chicago's Wendy Mao and David Mao have formed icy materials made of molecular hydrogen that require less stringent temperature and pressure storage conditions.

"This new class of compounds offers a possible alternative route for technologically useful hydrogen storage," said Russell Hemley, Senior Staff Scientist at the Geophysical Laboratory of the Carnegie Institution of Washington. The findings also could help explain how hydrogen becomes incorporated in growing planetary bodies, he said.

The father-daughter team synthesized compounds made of hydrogen and water, hydrogen and methane, and hydrogen and octane in a diamond-anvil cell, which researchers often use to simulate the high pressures found far beneath Earth's surface.

The hydrogen-water experiments produced the best results. "The hydrogen-water system has already yielded three compounds so far, with more likely to be found," said Wendy Mao, a graduate student in Geophysical Sciences at the University of Chicago.

The compound that holds the most promise for hydrogen storage, called a hydrogen clathrate hydrate, was synthesized at pressures between 20,000 and 30,000 atmospheres and temperatures of minus 207 degrees Fahrenheit. More importantly, the compound remains stable at atmospheric pressure and a temperature of minus 320 degrees Fahrenheit, the temperature at which liquid nitrogen boils.

"We thought that would be economically very feasible. Liquid nitrogen is easy and cheap to make," Wendy Mao said.

The hydrogen in a clathrate can be released when heated to 207 degrees Fahrenheit. The clathrate's environmentally friendly byproduct: water.

David Mao noted that while petroleum-based fuels will eventually run out, the supply of hydrogen is limitless. "Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe," said David Mao, a Visiting Scientist in Geophysical Sciences at the University of Chicago. If the new method of storing hydrogen fuel works as expected, "that's going to change everyone's life in a big way," he said.

The Maos have applied for a patent on their hydrogen clathrate synthesis technique, but one problem still remains: how to make the clathrates in quantities sufficient to power a car. "We've only made them in very small amounts in diamond-anvil cells," Wendy Mao said. The Carnegie Institution's Hemley noted that the clathrates can be produced in gas pressure devices as well as diamond-anvil cells.

In the realm of planetary science, the study helps explain how some of Jupiter's moons could have incorporated hydrogen during their formation. Scientists once thought that the moons were incapable of retaining hydrogen during their formation. Now it appears that Callisto, Ganymede and especially Europa contain large quantities of water ice, which would require the presence of hydrogen. The hydrogen clathrates that the Maos synthesized in the laboratory could have formed naturally under the temperature and pressure conditions expected to prevail inside these Jovian moons, Wendy Mao said.

This story has been adapted from a news release issued by University Of Chicago

[VadeRetro]

The "Environmentalists for Nuclear Energy".

Sounds almost oxymoronic, like the "Democrats for Nixon" of long ago. But anyone can have a revelation.

[PureSolace]

As soon as it happens let me know! Hydrogen cars would be cool! :)

[Wonder Warthog]

"The hydrogen in a clathrate can be released when heated to 207 degrees Fahrenheit. The clathrate's environmentally friendly byproduct: water."

I wonder if this isn't a typo, and if the clathrate doesn't actually release the hydrogen at -207 degrees Fahrenheit. It would be great if it was stable to +207 degrees F, but somehow I doubt it.

At any rate, some very interesting chemistry here, and, after all, at SOME point, we WILL run out of fossil fuels and HAVE to switch over to some non-fossil form(s). This just might be a technology that will make storage and transmission by hydrogen practical.

[ImaGraftedBranch]

University of Chicago scientists have proposed a new method for storing hydrogen fuel in this week's online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Strange. I checked this week's online edition and I don't see any hydrogen fuel stored in it.

Lazy Journalism.

[ImaGraftedBranch]

The most popular storage methods-liquid hydrogen and compressed hydrogen-...

I might be mistaken, but those are not storage methods. They are conditions.

[Wonder Warthog]

"Lazy Journalism"

No, I don't actually think it is laziness---the poor schmucks really don't know any better. After all, they are likely products of our "public edukashun system", which believes that correct spelling and grammar are no longer necessary.

[VadeRetro]

Good catch! I'm sure it's a dropped minus sign.

[epaul]

Check This out, much safer way of storing hydrogen.

Hydrogen in liquid form.

Millennium Cell is in hot pursuit of a cleaner, greener source of energy. The development-stage company's patented Hydrogen on Demand system uses a boron chemistry process to generate pure hydrogen from safe raw materials. In this process the energy potential of hydrogen is stored in sodium borohydride. Then, in the presence of a catalyst, hydrogen is produced, which can be used to generate electricity in a fuel cell or battery. The system can also be used in internal combustion engines that have been modified to burn hydrogen. Millennium Cell has built a hydrogen system for an SUV prototype and is working with DaimlerChrysler to develop the technology. GP Strategies owns about 10% of the company

[MainFrame65]

Unlike petroleum or natural gas, hydrogen will forever be an energy VECTOR rather than an energy source. That is, in order to prepare it for use as fuel, you will have to input all of the energy that it will provide, plus all of the energy lost in the process of preparation, distribution, and storage.

The only practical solution is nuclear, possibly with cogeneration of clean water. Unless you count the beanie-cap generator systems the greenies want us all to wear....

[Lessismore]

Most likely the search for non-carbon energy sources is misguided.

The release of greenhouse gases such as CO2 will increase the temperature, accelerating the end of the current inter-glacial period. The earth will then enter the much more normal glacial phase, of which there have been over twenty, some 100 thousand years each.

In order to prevent the premature end of the brief inter-glacial warm climate, we should probably be burning all the coal, crude oil, tar sands, oil shale, etc. that we can. Only in this way can we disrupt the glacial cycle and make the warm climate a permanent condition.

Otherwise, when the Arctic Ocean becomes ice free, the Gulf Stream stops, Canada and Europe will become covered by ice, and the glaciers will cover the northern hemisphere again.

Burn more coal.

[Kozak]

Strange. I checked this week's online edition and I don't see any hydrogen fuel stored in it

Actually it was a typo. They meant "Methane". As in Bovine flatulance....

[Chu Gary]

"I recall when Bush announced his hydrogen-car initiative, there were a lot of mockers and nay-sayers in here. We're not there yet, but one step at a time technology moves forward, and yesterday's impossibility eventually becomes tomorrow's everyday reality."

In the '80's when Reagan spoke of the defense the press dubbed Star Wars, all the Dims laughed and laughed. We have solved most of the problems now and are just refining the solutions. All in all, it didn't take too long in the whole scheme of things.

[FastCoyote]

"I recall when Bush announced his hydrogen-car initiative, there were a lot of mockers and nay-sayers in here. We're not there yet, but one step at a time technology moves forward, and yesterday's impossibility eventually becomes tomorrow's everyday reality."

---

"one step at a time technology moves forward, and yesterday's impossibility eventually becomes tomorrow's everyday federal BOONDOGGLE!"

Case in point: agri-ethanol, which takes more energy to produce than it creates.