New Method for Producing Clean(er) Hydrogen (a cleaner fuel reformer)

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://today.duke.edu/2013/05/cleanhydrogen

[font face=Serif][font size=5]New Method for Producing Clean Hydrogen[/font]
[font size=4]Duke engineers devise new way to produce clean hydrogen[/font]

May 21, 2013

[font size=3]Durham, NC - Duke University engineers have developed a novel method for producing clean hydrogen, which could prove essential to weaning society off of fossil fuels and their environmental implications.

While hydrogen is ubiquitous in the environment, producing and collecting molecular hydrogen for transportation and industrial uses is expensive and complicated. Just as importantly, a byproduct of most current methods of producing hydrogen is carbon monoxide, which is toxic to humans and animals.

The Duke engineers, using a new catalytic approach, have shown in the laboratory that they can reduce carbon monoxide levels to nearly zero in the presence of hydrogen and the harmless byproducts of carbon dioxide and water. They also demonstrated that they could produce hydrogen by reforming fuel at much lower temperatures than conventional methods, which makes it a more practical option.

Catalysts are agents added to promote chemical reactions. In this case, the catalysts were nanoparticle combinations of gold and iron oxide (rust), but not in the traditional sense. Current methods depend on gold nanoparticles’ ability to drive the process as the sole catalyst, while the Duke researchers made both the iron oxide and the gold the focus of the catalytic process.

…[/font][/font]

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jcat.2012.12.027

Yes, the good news is that they’re producing CO[font size="1"]₂[/font]…

[FogerRox]

1. Wow.

Yes, the good news is that they’re producing CO2…

[Buzz Clik]

2. Here's a bit more context:

One of the newest approaches to producing renewable energy is the use of biomass-derived alcohol-based sources, such as methanol. When methanol is treated with steam, or reformed, it creates a hydrogen-rich mixture that can be used in fuel cells.

"The main problem with this approach is that it also produces carbon monoxide, which is not only toxic to life, but also quickly damages the catalyst on fuel cell membranes that are crucial to the functioning of a fuel cell," Hotz said. "It doesn't take much carbon monoxide to ruin these membranes."

The researchers ran the reaction for more than 200 hours and found no reduction in the ability of the catalyst to reduce the amount of carbon monoxide in the hydrogen gas.

[kristopher]

3. Say it works as advertised

What do you do with it?

You've gone from biomass>methanol>H2 - now what? Electricity?

Why not burn the biomass in a generator and put it on the grid. For trans it can feed battery EVs.


We have an analysis of the relative efficiencies before we lose more to reforming and then passing it through the fuel cell to get electricity.

Greater Transportation Energy and GHG Offsets from Bioelectricity Than Ethanol
J. E. Campbell,1,2* D. B. Lobell,3 C. B. Field4

The quantity of land available to grow biofuel crops without affecting food prices or greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from land conversion is limited. Therefore, bioenergy should maximize land-use efficiency when addressing transportation and climate change goals. Biomass could power either internal combustion or electric vehicles, but the relative land-use efficiency of these two energy pathways is not well quantified. Here, we show that bioelectricity outperforms ethanol across a range of feedstocks, conversion technologies, and vehicle classes. Bioelectricity produces an average of 81% more transportation kilometers and 108% more emissions offsets per unit area of cropland than does cellulosic ethanol. These results suggest that alternative bioenergy pathways have large differences in how efficiently they use the available land to achieve transportation and climate goals.

[OKIsItJustMe]

4. Or, one may go from biomass to hydrogen

http://www.democraticunderground.com/112740208

[kristopher]

5. I could see running an integrated agricultural operation around that process.

They need the energy density. And FCs offer another possibility - I wouldn't be surprised to see them become modular so that they can be pulled from farm tractors to also operate other equipment, like remote irrigation pumps. You can't do that with the diesel engines.