Hydrogen is another one of those “just around the corner” technologies for powering all of our vehicles. You can use it to run a fuel cell or burn it directly in an internal combustion engine. Either way works, but almost every solution requires high pressure cylinders or very low temperatures to store it before use which makes vehicle applications difficult. A new development creates a chemical hydride in the form of micron sized microbeads that will flow like fuel and enable storage at ordinary temperatures and pressures.
The process uses two tanks in the vehicle. One contains the beads charged with hydrogen, the other is the waste tank containing the beads after the hydrogen has been released. The beads flow from the storage tank to what’s called a hot cell, heating the beads enough to release the hydrogen, the heat for the hot cell is supplied by the engine. The gas moves to a hydrogen buffer which holds it before continuing to the engine. The buffer stores enough hydrogen for restarting the engine until sufficient engine heat is available to release more hydrogen from the stored beads.
The used beads are exchanged for fresh when refueling and hydride regeneration is done off site at a location where the necessary equipment is located.
It seems like a straight forward process, but, as always, it’s not yet at the commercial stage. It does sound more practical than some previous methods and may be the one that works.
Thanks for the tip, Paul!
Link: Cella Energy via International Business Times
Stats says
Sounds like a decent solution from an engineering standpoint, but hydrogen is already fairly energy intensive to create, and adding microbeads to the equation seems like it would exacerbate the problem. When looking at lifecycle efficiency, this may not be the best option.
Bart says
Interesting find, thanks!
I think the challange for this technology is getting the volume of tanks and equipment down to a managable size, and getting the cost of the hydride chemistry down. The fuel and waste tanks can be rotomolded to fit available space. The hot cell would be under the hood or part of the exhaust system (no catylists anymore!)
Think of this as a hydrogen battery box with a discharge tank attached. I would try to combine the fuel/waste tanks with an internal bladder so there would be only one tank assembly for charged and waste beads, saving volume on the vehicle.
If the heat of reaction to charge/discharge the beads is as low as they claim, they may have something here! Buy it by the bag at Costco like barkdust?! Having delt with pressurized H2 systems myself, this reads like progress.
Azzy says
The people at United Nuclear have been running a similar solution for a few years now in a Corvette, if I remember correctly.
http://www.switch2hydrogen.com/
Nicolas says
can water (H2O) be used as the media transporting the hydrogen, instead of these mysterious beads ?
The engine would not provide heat, but electricity, to run an electrolyse of the water, get H2 out of it, and release O … stuff we can breathe, actually …
Anyone ?
Bart says
Nicolas,
Think of water (H2O) as burnt hydrogen. Its already burnt (oxidized.) To use it as a fuel source requires unburning it (reducing it to H2). That takes way more energy than burning it can release for useful work.
If a really cheap source of energy is available (solar power, perhaps someday) then water could be hydrolyzed to H2. Or start with hydrogen already bound up with something that is a “downhill” reaction path, that will yield H2 without a helluva lot of energy/heat/pressure.
Think of H2 as transient energy more like electricity than a fuel. All electricity has to be manufactured (generated), same for hydrogen.
B50 Jim says
Nicholas —
Water contains large amounts of hydrogen, but requires a lot of energy to separate into its constituent parts. Remember those grade-school science demonstrations with two test tubes, electrodes and a power supply — it ran several hours and generated just a tubeful of hydrogen. Might as well hook the engine to the wheels and drive the vehicle the old-fashioned way. To make hydrogen viable as a motor fuel, it must be produced on an industrial scale at a price at least competitive with, and preferably cheaper than, gasoline and diesel fuel costs to produce. Face it, we’ve been making liquid fuels a long time and we know how to make them efficiently. Any discussion of hydrogen must begin with production and the TOTAL cost to make it. I’m a big proponent of alternative fuels, and I like hydrogen for a lot of reasons. Maybe we’ll soon have solar panels efficient enough to make large amounts of hydrogen — water is relatively cheap, and sunlight is free. But I don’t think this technology has legs without the massive injections of development cash necessary to get it off the ground. And remember there are legions of naysayers who will be all too happy to bring up images of the Hindenburg disaster to prove their point. Oh, the humanity!
Nicolas says
thanks Jihm for the explanation
Jimmy says
water is relatively cheap? a little food for thought, nothing on this planet can survive without water. if we start to use water as a fuel it won’t be long before we are without fresh water for survival. a lot of people are under the impression that after you burn the hydrogen you get back water, you can’t have the water without the hydrogen now can you. and if you try to use salt water for hydrogen production you run into problems separating the minerals, increasing the cost. I don’t think hydrogen will ever be a replacement for any fuel on a large scale
hoyt says
Water is also a precious resource/consideration in the algae production for fuel. Water usage may not be as great as this discussion, but it is still something that must be planned on a large scale.
Paulinator says
Hydrogen isn’t created. The universe is awash in it. I cannot see any value in stripping hydrogen from hydro-carbon molecules, to use in IC engines or fuel-cells somewhere else. I do hope, however, that this system may provide an alternate means of wind/wave/solar (or other renewable) energy storage that is non-toxic, fairly dense and portable. Frankly, there seems to be a some serious short-comings with the plug-in electric approach to energy independance and sustainability. So even converting power from the grid into H2 is preferable to charging expensive, foreign, toxic and temporary batteries for our vehicles.
Paulinator says
B50 – blaugas…we should burn blaugas.
Bill says
Seems like a good idea to me 🙂
I guess refuelling would require the beads to be swapped out, if a potentially dangerous gas transfer is to be avoided.
That means that either the beads have to flow like a liquid into and out of the tanks (perhaps blown by a small amount of H2) or the tanks themselves would need to be swapped (which would probably make for a faster and safer fuel stop).
Bill
B50 Jim says
Paulinator — I’ll install a Blaugas generator in my basement and let you know how it works.
Amid all the discussions about alternative energy on The Kneeslider, I’m impressed with the thoughtful ideas and commentary — we’re all enthusiastic riders of IC-powered machines, yet we see the eventual need to find alternatives. I’m sure we represent the the entire political spectrum, yet the discussion has remained constructive. The one thing I know about the search for alternative forms of energy is that the eventual solutions will require vast amounts of research and effort, and probably will look nothing like what we are visualizing now. Remember, early cars ran on benzine; drivers had to shop for fuel at cleaning-supply stores, drug stores and hardware dealers. They couldn’t have imagined simply driving up to a pump and filling their tanks, yet within a very short time that’s just what they did. The need was there and the market filled it. Our current need for new forms of energy will drive the market to fulfill that need.
Tin Man says
Take the politics out of the energy equation and you will find that for the 5th time in recent history the “energy shortage”is being promoted to line the pockets of the rich. There is NO shortage. Alternative energy sources will be there when the market wants them, well before any actaul shortage occurs. This is the 3rd time in my lifetime we were “running out of Oil” complete B.S., Social engineering at its best. Where is your Memory people??
leston says
…and then the laws of thermodynamics get involved and we are back to the basics
Paulinator says
huh?
JustThunkin says
@Kneeslider…Paul, I assume your opening line was tongue-in-cheek as evidenced by the quotation marks abounding just-around-the corner technology. It’s a gut buster everytime I see that in print anywhere. If I recall correctly, there was an early hydrogen car back in the 1800’s, and certainly no lack of effort from GM in the 1970’s, as well as other efforts readers have mentioned. We depend on technology to provide the answers, reveal the cures, and march us forward. And with each new idea there is speculation and grand standing, followed quickly (in the case of hydrogen powered vehicles), disappointment.
It would be nothing less than one of the greatest achievements of modern times if Cella actually produced anything close to their aspirations.
But something is missing. After spending a great deal of time on the Cella website reading and re-reading the tightly worded FAQ’s, exploring each pull down menu, and trying every Google search I could conjure, what did I NOT find?
A working prototype.
One scant flow chart as you reprinted here, lots of references to other works and government guidelines, references to their storage technology, references to well known energy units, etc.. But not even a crude mockup of a working engine.
That leads me to believe there is an undisclosed problem of a grand nature. One that I see immediately is the problem of initial ignition and warm up of the engine. There will be zero energy produced for fuel separation in the “hot cell” at cold start with this system. Another is the amount of heat extraction from the engine to drive the hot cell. Neither of these nagging little gremlins is addressed by Cella.
Somebody steer me back on the path if I missed something obvious.
Paul Crowe - "The Kneeslider" says
Almost every alternative fuel “solution” needs to be enclosed in quotes because of those pesky one or two things that need to be worked out before it becomes commercially viable, or even functional in the first place. Sometimes, those things are real show stoppers, just one little hurdle to overcome to move from the lab to the working prototype stage, otherwise it’s just an idea forever.
I never rule out the possibility that any particular idea might be the big one, but many in this field seem to get this far and stumble. It’s interesting to see what people are thinking and working on, so I toss these out there for everyone to evaluate and discuss.
Bart says
Just,
The article says a hydrogen buffer is used to store enough H2 to get going from cold. When parked “hot” latent heat from the engine/exhaust could be captured to reload the buffer. The buffer never gets empty.
There would be plenty of waste heat, not much different than present Otto cycle engines if a mechanical engine is used. If it feeds a fuel cell, those generate plenty of energy. There is no getting away from the heat of reaction of H2 + O2 to H2O.
Also, this is not an engine technology. This is an energy store/transport/release system that has a lower/practical costs to do so than current means (metal hydrides, high pressure tanks/pumps) It can feed any consumer of H2: motors, fuel cells, etc at low pressures and reasonable temperatures.
todd says
Right. There is no real need for a prototype of a functioning motor. Hydrogen WILL power an ICE, it’s been shown many times before. If they show they can produce and store useful quantities of hydrogen with very little energy input then they are on to something. That’s the challenge, not driving down the road in a hydrogen powered vehicle. Heck, a friend of mine rigged something up on his VW Caddy and it ran. If I remember correctly his fuel cell was producing 4 liters of H2 per minute off the power generated by the alternator. It was fun until he blew the intake manifold off…
-todd
JustThunkin says
Thanks to all. However, the idea that it is simply a converted ICE see,s at first blush to be an oversimplification. While the basic parameters of the Otto cycle may indeed apply, without a working model everything that has been presented by Cella is just conjecture and speculation. I did notice the buffer should be able to “restart” the engine, but it is implied that the entire system needs an initial state of precharge. That requires a wholesale involvement of manufacturing change at the auto plant level…and look how long it has taken to get relatively simplistic battery power implementation for e-vehicles.
And then there is the issue of recycling the spent beads, or waste. Heavy on additional infrastructure, plus retraining drivers for the regular maintenance process of swapping out the tank or whatever they may envision. I can’t get my wife to even empty rear seats of soda cans on a regular basis!
And though they state their “finished” beads employ a safe and non-toxic non-nano technology, the base operation does indeed appear to be both risky and definitely unproven at any scale approaching what is used for even E15 gasohol.
It is interesting to discuss, but I remain in a state of amused disbelief that this is anywhere near a “just around the corner” (no attack intended, Paul) solution. It appears much more technologically convoluted than growing biomass in ocean farms. Well, good luck to them and all the out of the box thinkers; but investors beware.
woolyhead says
I keep waiting and hoping…..but it seems that semi-pure gasoline still has the edge for the masses around the world…..even though it is taxed unmercifully.