Posted on 02/12/2004 4:53:51 PM PST by wallcrawlr
University of Minnesota scientists have figured out an efficient way to capture hydrogen from ethanol, a development that could provide a simultaneous boost to efforts to create a “hydrogen economy’’ and the state’s ethanol industry.
The discovery, outlined in the Feb. 13 issue of Science magazine, appears to remove a key obstacle in the effort to reduce society’s dependence on imported fuels such as gasoline and natural gas.
Even though hydrogen is the most common element on earth, the process of isolating it has been costly, dirty and energy consuming, thereby limiting its appeal.
Enter Lanny Schmidt, Regents professor of chemical engineering at the university, and two assistants, Gregg Deluga and graduate student James Salge.
Over the past year, they’ve built a reactor that converts ethanol, a renewable corn-based product produced in 14 plants statewide, into hydrogen. That, in turn, can be used to power a fuel cell, a battery-like device that converts hydrogen and oxygen into electricity and heat.
Schmidt said the reactor can be built small enough to hold in a hand and could in five or more years provide electricity for houses, lighted billboards, and air-conditioning units in vehicles.
Eventually, he said, it could be used as an alternative fuel source in automobiles, as well as for decentralized power systems. “Every county or town could build its own local power system rather than having to have a megaplant,’’ Schmidt said.
The scientists accomplished the breakthrough by making two adjustments to a process already used to extract hydrogen from methane, natural gas and gasoline.
The first was altering the composition of a material that acted as a catalyst to convert the ethanol into hydrogen. The second was using an automotive fuel injector that vaporizes an ethanol-water mix.
“We really don’t understand why the catalyst works so very well,’’ said Deluga, who suggested the ceria option after reading about its properties’
Asked how he happened to focus on it, he said, “I just had an inkling it might work.’’
“He (Deluga) said it was brilliance,’’ Schmidt said jokingly. “I said it was a wild guess.’’
The effort was not without complications. For a long time, the project was plagued by fires in the reactor, but that problem eventually was solved.
“We were kind of surprised nobody had done it previously,’’ Schmidt explained. “But after you look at it, we see why people may have tired and given up.’’
Private industries, he said, have a keen interest in hydrogen technology and can be expected to expand on the technology’s opportunities and options.
The most obvious immediate boost, Schmidt said, is to the state’s ethanol industry, which relies on homegrown corn. Its energy content, he said, is similar to other fossil fuels such as natural gas.
“Someone made the line up that Minnesota is the Saudia Arabia of renewable products,’’ he said. “We could supply the energy needs of the country from the Upper Midwest.’’
The discovery comes as Minnesota and the rest of nation escalates efforts to make hydrogen more feasible as a power source.
President Bush, for example, has made widespread use of hydrogen fuel cells the centerpiece of his energy plan.
The Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development, meanwhile, recently submitted a report to the Legislature examining ways to develop a hydrogen economy in Minnesota. In the report, it argues the technology should be developed across the state, where renewable resources such as ethanol are immediately accessible, rather than in specific, targeted enterprise areas.
In its most elementary form, the university’s process works this way: Ethanol is fed through a fuel injector, vaporized and heated, and then converted by a rhodium-ceria catalyst into hydrogen, which can then be fed to a fuel cell to produce electricity.
One of the benefits of converting ethanol into hydrogen for fuel cells, Schmidt and Deluga said, is improved energy efficiency. A bushel of corn, they said, yields three times as much power if its energy is channeled into hydrogen fuel cells rather than burned along with gasoline.
“Ethanol in car engines is burned with 20 percent efficiency, but if you used ethanol to make hydrogen for a fuel cell, you would get 60 percent efficiency,’’ Schmidt said.
The reason, Deluga said, is because all water must be removed from ethanol before it can be put into a gas tank. But he said the new process, which strips hydrogen from both ethanol and water, doesn’t require such a pure form of ethanol.
The work was funded in part by the University of Minnesota’s Initiative on Renewable Energy and the Environment, the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Energy.
Schmidt and Deluga said the university can be proud of the accomplishment.
“The university wants to be, can be, and is in a position to make a major impact in this long-term solution,’’ Schmidt said. “It’s a long-term solution to a lot of problems in Minnesota.’’
I have a 100 HP stationary diesel that weighs almost 3000 pounds, and that is without the transimission it needs to be of any use even driving a pump or generator. Obviously, the diesel engine can never be used in a vehicle. Think a bit before you post such absurd nonsense. You discredit yourself by using such a totaly ridiculous exampls as a 7.5 HP three phase shop motor compared with a specifically designed garden tractor engine. Why don't yo try putting that tractor engine to use in place of the shop motor if you think it is so much better? Think about it. Wonder how they ever manage to make an electric golf cart work?
These things require fossil fuel to produce so they are just another unnecessary step on the way from fossil fuel to work done (transportation)
Of course, there is no possibility that the farm equip[ment could ever be converted to run on the ethanol it is producing? Of course not, but not for technical reasons, just for reasons that your argument fall apart if they are!
I think that you know nothing about what you are discussing. Most naysayers don't.
Sounds toxic.
Actually I've been an idiot. There is a lot easier way to disprove this catalytic ethanol to H2 horse sh!t. That is: look at the bond energies ethanol CH3CH2OH has 5 C-H bonds, one C-C bond, one C-O bond and one O-H bond this adds up to 5*343 + 347 + 356 + 464 kcal per mole to dissociate it. 2882kcal/mole Now you get back 3 H-H and 1/2 O-O and say one C-C as a yield 3*435 + 1/2*147 + 347 = 1726 kcal /mole. I'm assuming the C-C is a wash. You have to put in 2882 - 1726 kcal/mole. You need to find 1156 kCal per mole to run this reaction. First law of thermodynamics violation otherwise known as perpetual motion of the first kind. All the catalysts in the world don't change this.
You H2 and ethanol people view this as a religion and any who disagree are heretics. It wouldn't matter what I came up with you wouldn't accept it.
You could very well use that tractor engine in place of the electric motor on a hp for hp basis. The main reasons to use the heavy electric motor are that you don't have a lot of fumes, it's quieter, and you don't have to keep a supply of fuel on hand.
One application for such motors is air compressors. Depending on use, some use IC engines, some use electric motors.
To the best of my knowledge I don't have any catalysts in my natural gas line. It's just an iron pipe.
I'm not a H2 or ethanol people. I am a promoter of fuel cell research and applications. Your are a H2 and ethanol naysayer, but you don't even seem to know the difference between a 3 phase electric industrial stationary motor and a DC motor designed for use in automotive power. Wonder why I have a hard time trying to "accept it" when you propose it?
You are going to see fuel cell technology developed and put to use in the near future. What form the fuel will end up being in is currently under research (my personal preference is natural gas, for a number of reasons). Whether fuel cells will end up powering vehicles, I have no way of knowing but I think that will most likely be one of the applications, maybe not the first. I would like to see the United States be the leader in this industry rather than having to beg it off of some other (possibly enemy) nation.
It was all I could find, but feel free to find specs on any DC automotive motor you want. The locomotive motors used to pull trains would probably be similar, but I couldn't find any specs for those either. Knock yourself out.
No. You couldn't. HP ratings, and torque curves, are very different for electric motors and gasoline engines. They are rated so differently that comparing the ratings number for number is as meaningless as comparing grams and ounces without knowing that they are different units of measure.
Here is some information on this difference for your reference.
Yep my knowledge of thermodynamics puts me firmly in this camp
You are going to see fuel cell technology developed and put to use in the near future
Yeah right. I've been hearing this since the early '70s Fuel cell/fusion/you name it miracle technology is just around the corner. Well the corner never arrives.
Tell you what I have a limited supply of these pills where you fill your gas tank with water and drop in the pill and you can run on that. If you're interesed I'll let you have them at a very good price and throw in my super duper molecular aligner that enables you to get 80 miles per gallon (it uses a catalyst and an automotive fuel injector, and I'm not sure why it works so well).
Check the link in #112 for some information that will show the differences we are dealing with in electric vs gasoline (or diesel). Keep in mind that current vehicle motors are still relatively undeveloped since ther is little demand for them. Demand ends up causing technology advances.
There are any number of applications where you can get gas or electric power, from air compressors to lawnmowers to chainsaws. Most of these actually operate in a narrow RPM band, so the torque curve is rather meaningless. You can choose a point that favors electric and you can choose a point that favors IC. However, when it comes to porability, IC comes in at a vast weight savings simply because the fuel is far more energy dense than batteries.
You can't substitute a 8 HP rated gas engine in an application that requries an 8 HP rated electric motor. You could easily substitute an 8 HP electric motor (or smaller) for an 8 HP IC engine. My 3.5 HP rated electric lawnmower easily outperforms my old 5 HP gas mower. A 3/4 HP electric motor that runs my little milling machine does work easily that a 3/4 HP rated gas engine couldn't do at all if I tried to substitute it. The link made it pretty clear that IC's are rated in peak HP and electrics are rated continuous HP. Torque is maximum at lowest RPM on electrics as well which makes a gas IC substitute another problem (meaning you need a torque amplification device of some type, a transmission, to get something started with an IC that will start without one using an electric (another attractive feature of an electric vehicle power train). This increases the needed rated HP of a gas engine another notch in a substitute for an electric. You don't have to believe me, just try it and convince yourself. I know from experience, I've designed and built many, many different types of mechanical things (it's a hobby currently and I worked in mechanical/electrical mainteneance in Insustrial plants many years ago). You may need to learn the same way if you don't trust what the pro's say or what I have learned from experience.
Depends on the application. The main thing about an electric is that when you load it and decrease the rpm, the torque doesn't go away. You can load the thing until it stops and it doesn't die. IC engines necessarily have peaky torque curves.
However, the advantages of IC are many. The main one being that it is far, far easier to store/replace/refill your energy source when an extension cord is out of the question.
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