New Fuel Cell Design Uses Biomass to Generate Hydrogen

[Vogon_Glory]

While the Rulin' Dubya Posse continues its eight year reprieve for the fossil fuel industry from competition from renewable energy sources and the "menace" of a sustainable energy economy, scientists and researchers have been at work on a different future. A new fuel cell design looks to be extremely useful not only for generating hydrogen from biomass, but also for cleaning up wastewater and greatly lower the potential for feed lot and slaughterhouse manure pit ruptures polluting streams and rivers.

Think of it. Instead of raping ANWR and funding Wahabbism (courtesy of the fossil fuel industry), we could be moving to a cleaner, renewable fuel AND doing something to clean up those lagoons of ordure around feedlots and pig slaughter houses.

And, if this process proves practical as well as feasible, it won't only be the industrialized first world that benefits, but also many areas in the energy-strapped third world as well.

From www.cleanedge.com

Microbial Fuel Cell: High-Yield Hydrogen Source and Wastewater Cleaner
April 25, 2005
Source: Clean Edge News


Using a new electrically-assisted microbial fuel cell (MFC) that does not require oxygen, Penn State environmental engineers and a scientist at Ion Power Inc. have developed the first process that enables bacteria to coax four times as much hydrogen directly out of biomass than can be generated typically by fermentation alone.

Dr. Bruce Logan, the Kappe professor of environmental engineering and an inventor of the MFC, says, "This MFC process is not limited to using only carbohydrate-based biomass for hydrogen production like conventional fermentation processes. We can theoretically use our MFC to obtain high yields of hydrogen from any biodegradable, dissolved, organic matter -- human, agricultural or industrial wastewater, for example -- and simultaneously clean the wastewater.

"While there is likely insufficient waste biomass to sustain a global hydrogen economy, this form of renewable energy production may help offset the substantial costs of wastewater treatment as well as provide a contribution to nations able to harness hydrogen as an energy source," Logan notes,.

[LiberalEsto]

1. Not to mention all that biomass

in the Oval Office and the Speaker's office....

[Vogon_Glory]

2. And To Our Fisherman Friends

A word to our fisherman friends, whether "liberal" or right-wing lurker: a better treatment process for sewage reduces water pollution, lowers the risk of massive sewage or feedlot manure spills killing tens of thousands of game fish, and helps reduce the contamination running into coastal waters.

[Coastie for Truth]

3. Anybody have a link to the actual paper

I Googled the paper's title Electrochemically Assisted Microbial Production of Hydrogen from Acetate and the authors' names - and just kept getting PSU and some general releases from PSU.

Thanks.

[Coastie for Truth]

4. Here is is - extended abstract

Liu et al Electrochemically Assisted Microbial Production of Hydrogen from Acetate