Posted on 06/13/2008 12:02:30 PM PDT by Red Badger
120W fuel cell system
Internal portion of the 120W fuel cell stack
300W generation system mounted in a luggage room (left)
Genepax Co Ltd explained the technologies used in its new fuel cell system "Water Energy System (WES)," which uses water as a fuel and does not emit CO2.
The system can generate power just by supplying water and air to the fuel and air electrodes, respectively, the company said at the press conference, which took place June 12, 2008, at the Osaka Assembly Hall.
The basic power generation mechanism of the new system is similar to that of a normal fuel cell, which uses hydrogen as a fuel. According to Genepax, the main feature of the new system is that it uses the company's membrane electrode assembly (MEA), which contains a material capable of breaking down water into hydrogen and oxygen through a chemical reaction.
Though the company did not reveal the details, it "succeeded in adopting a well-known process to produce hydrogen from water to the MEA," said Hirasawa Kiyoshi, the company's president. This process is allegedly similar to the mechanism that produces hydrogen by a reaction of metal hydride and water. But compared with the existing method, the new process is expected to produce hydrogen from water for longer time, the company said.
With the new process, the cell needs only water and air, eliminating the need for a hydrogen reformer and high-pressure hydrogen tank. Moreover, the MEA requires no special catalysts, and the required amount of rare metals such as platinum is almost the same as that of existing systems, Genepax said.
Unlike the direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC), which uses methanol as a fuel, the new system does not emit CO2. In addition, it is expected to have a longer life because catalyst degradation (poisoning) caused by CO does not occur on the fuel electrode side. As it has only been slightly more than a year since the company completed the prototype, it plans to collect more data on the product life.
At the conference, Genepax unveiled a fuel cell stack with a rated output of 120W and a fuel cell system with a rated output of 300W. In the demonstration, the 120W fuel cell stack was first supplied with water by using a dry-cell battery operated pump. After power was generated, it was operated as a passive system with the pump turned off.
This time, the voltage of the fuel cell stack was 25-30V. Because the stack is composed of 40 cells connected in series, it is expected that the output per cell is 3W or higher, the voltage is about 0.5-0.7V, and the current is about 6-7A. The power density is likely to be not less than 30mW/cm2 because the reaction area of the cell is 10 x 10 cm.
Meanwhile, the 300W fuel cell system is an active system, which supplies water and air with a pump. In the demonstration, Genepax powered the TV and the lighting equipment with a lead-acid battery charged by using the system. In addition, the 300W system was mounted in the luggage room of a compact electric vehicle "Reva" manufactured by Takeoka Mini Car Products Co Ltd, and the vehicle was actually driven by the system.
Genepax initially planned to develop a 500W system, but failed to procure the materials for MEA in time and ended up in making a 300W system.
For the future, the company intends to provide 1kw-class generation systems for use in electric vehicles and houses. Instead of driving electric vehicles with this system alone, the company expects to use it as a generator to charge the secondary battery used in electric vehicles.
Although the production cost is currently about ¥2,000,000 (US$18,522), it can be reduced to ¥500,000 or lower if Genepax succeeds in mass production. The company believes that its fuel cell system can compete with residential solar cell systems if the cost can be reduced to this level.
Every time someone brings up the flux capacitor, I want to tell them it’s a real device. I studied these in one of my MSEE courses.
Here’s an example. See page 8:
http://ims.unipv.it/Microelettronica/Layout03.pdf
keat - It happened yesterday. 5-4 decision by the Supreme Court.
Good news indeed. The energy crisis will soon be solved now that that pesky thermodynamics law thingy has been done away with! (snigger)
I never said the hydrogen/oxygen electrolysis process was oxidation (burning).
However for every chemist who says releasing more energy in the form of hydrogen than you put into the reaction is impossible there are thousands of folk out there right now improving their gas mileage through hydrogen generating boosters to their gasoline engines.
I’m not convinced any chemist understands the process of cracking hydrogen comprehensively—and efficiencies can be gained.
Of course we need cheap electrical power as part of the whole energy solution—and nuke plants are a part of that.
All I’m saying is that in principle, since water is a storage vehicle for energy, it can be tapped too.
Scam, plain and simple. Exposed by Mythbusters, among others.
I’m not convinced any chemist understands the process of cracking hydrogen comprehensively—and efficiencies can be gained.
I am.
120W. Just enough to run my two desk lamps!
This seems to be one of those IQ test threads that separate those who believe science is magic from those who accept reality.
Brilliantly stated, sir.
Everything after the MEA can be ignored until the MEA itself is explained.
Sounds like the ideal solution to the Man-Made Global Warming Problem
Energy Hog!
OK; then substitute an oscillation overthruster for the flux capacitor.
>>All I’m saying is that in principle, since water is a storage vehicle for energy, it can be tapped too.
No it isn’t, and no it can’t, without converting the water to something else first.
We oxidize fuels to release the chemical potential energy and convert that energy to heat, to provide comfort and process heating, and to drive heat engines to make shaft work, for transportation and to drive generators to make electricity.
Coal, oil, natural gas and (rarely) hydrogen are among the fuels we use to do this.
Water is oxidized hydrogen. The chemical potential energy of water is pretty much doodly squat, and you can quote me on that.
This gets into the issue that for many today, “everyone’s answer is equally valid” <*barf*>, when that is just simply not the case.
We can thank the modern education “system” for most of that.
Tell me about it. I’m a college Computer Science teacher, and I’m an iota away from giving up on academia.
There is no oil crisis
Couple a whole batch of Internal Combustion engines to electric motors, and have the electic motors drive the IC engines in reverse. They will them suck CO2 and water vapour in through the exhaust pipe.
Collect the hyrdocarbon vapour at the inlet ports.
Freedom from the mid East Oil Sheiks!
Yeah, ouch on that.
It’s especially tough when you’re in a field where there are plain and simple right and wrong answers, and where higher-level policy/judgment calls, while at some level subjective, really depend on having the background of understanding those lower-level right and wrong answers.
You got it! Entropy rules the day. Gibbs Free Energy tells you how much you got.
Perhaps you would like to look at my perpetual motion generator. It is a fan driven generator. The span of the fan is equal to the distance between the Senate Chamber and the House Chamber of the Capitol Building. As a matter of fact I have mounted it there. There seems to be an endless supply of hot air and high velocity bovine feces ejected from the building. It supplies as much power as the warp drive on the Starship Enterprise.
You are correct if you are talking about thermonuclear fusion. I really do not think that was a hydrogen bomb they had set up. On another subject I have reduced the price of that bridge in Brooklyn to a mere 10,000 dollars. Please remit you payment to me and your account numbers to my associate in Lagos, Nigeria and we will arrange the transfer to you immediately.
PS The laws of thermodynamics do not take heretics lightly.
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