Hydrogen Production & Use

Most large-scale, commercial production of hydrogen uses natural gas or petroleum naphtha as a feedstock. The process is known as "Steam Reforming".

I don't understand the logic of using perfectly good fuels such as natural gas or petroleum naphtha to produce hydrogen which will be burned in a combustion engine/ turbine for producing electricity. Why not just burn the natural gas or naphtha?

The energy required to convert natural gas or naphtha to hydrogen is considerable. Converting such fuels into hydrogen and then burning the hydrogen will be very wasteful of the energy in the natural gas or naphtha fuels.

Steam reforming works on syngas and on alcohols just as well as it does on natural gas (methane). Also, you will find that the process will work on any biomass with 800°C steam.

Note, also, we are not trying to remove all the CO₂ from the atmosphere, after all, the plants of this world breath CO₂ and will die without it. What our goal is to not continue to add so much CO₂ or other greenhouse gases, such and CH₄, which is 10 times more powerful a greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere.

We, as engineers, are responsible for using our heads and our education for making this earth a more livable place for all life, not just the privileged few..

You would not want to do it this way as your system will ALWAYS be less efficient and more polluting than to just refine and burn the fuel needed to produce the hydrogen in the first place (hydrogen is not a fuel, it an energy carrier). I think you need to do a bit of further research into hydrogen generation and power principles as you are trying to do something that will waste rather than save energy (and is totally impractical). That is why we don't produce renewable power this way.

Gentlemen,

It seem like I might should have used a better description of what we have in mind to ask my question. Sorry about that so here is the long version. I am not a design engineer, so I have come seeking the same, with no expectations that our companies ideas are correct. I do seek your answers to our questions but, I hope I'm not defining to much. We wish to only stay within a very green power energy portfolio. Thank you for courteous inflections.

Without speaking too much out of school, our thoughts were along what would be the proper lines of electricity production for small 5 MW power plants and under.

One goal of our group is to find a design that can use Hydrogen for power production in a stand alone, small power plant. The primary energy to split the water has been proposed to be provided by a solar array. By tethering together these two systems, then combined with liquid salts storing the heat, a small power facility might could run continuously using steam or combustion turbines coupled with a flywheel arrangement as a storage device, as it would have a multi back up that is green power only. When the power needs of the power plant and or its home or structure are met, you would sell excess power to the grid. Preferably, primary applications would be commercial power production.

Solar power could be used to heat liquid salts and while this is not a entire days work for a solar tower or parabolic system, the splitting of water into hydrogen might provide a back up power supply that is Green too from excess solar gain. The hydrogen could be burned as produced, to drive the steam turbines or combustion turbine engines and heat the salt. The salts are a hot water storage system used now and 5 MW is the ideal small power plant for us to build in rural areas, often more than what is in small communities now. Storage of hydrogen and oxygen is not a primary system requirement, but it might be very helpful if buyers of any excess production could be found. Just like Green Credits, there is a market for everything.

Additionally, it was thought by our group that there would be a low environmental impact from a plant in this configuration and the design could be replicated from a small home power level all the way up to a commercial one at 5 MW, with certain conditions of course. Engineers please do offer you thoughts.

Thanks

Mr. Woodall

Georgia Adobe LP

Dewy Rose, Georgia

Sales@georgiaadobe.com

I will put it simply. Water electrolysis for hydrogen production to produce power is not and never will be economical due to its hopelessly inefficient nature. You should not try and go down this road. There is plenty of information on the internet as to WHY this is so, just be aware that there are plenty of LIES on the internet also. If the power companies are not producing power this way then that should be a good initial indication to you (and others) that perhaps there is a very good reason why.

Current solar panels are also too inefficient and require more power to produce them than they will ever produce themselves. This is just the way it is. Grid tying solar panels will not be economical (this is likely even with government subsidies, etc) and is a no-no. Solar panels have there uses, but grid tie power is not one of them. Perhaps in the future when the technology matures, but certainly not with what we have now.

These ideas have all been thought of and tried in one form or another before but don't give up hope! There are plenty of ways to help increase the power usage efficiency of a building such as using radiant heat energy solar hot water heating (one of the best - a very efficient and low cost solution). The truth is that the power provided by the existing coal fired (and other sources) power stations is already very efficient, especially when you take all factors into consideration. Remember a solution you may come up with may produce (as an example) the power of one coal-fired power station over its life, but if it cost the power and resources of 2 coal-fired power stations then overall you have made things worse.

Liquid salts sound like a good idea to pursue (better than batteries and the associated inverter required). Keep up the good work (and I hope you have some experienced power engineers in or available to your team so they can help keep you pointing in the right direction).

Jack - A power engineer.

Dear Jack,

I am from India marketing single and double stage coal gasifiers and would like to know how to geto by products like hydrogen and methane gas or methanol. You may suggest better and viable applicaiton of crude hot gas.

Regards

T. Paul

Dear Sirs,

Without a doubt dis-information abounds and Hydrogen production being hopeless through electrolysis, may be a fact. Your right I don't know . I am thankful to hear your thoughts and will continue to seek others advice for "proof of life" for electrolysis. What we were thinking is that a solar tower by design produces heat. That heat can be stored as described earlier. When that process is complete and your maximum storage is achieved : What do you do with the incoming heat gain ? Our Answer Was : Find a way to produce additional fuel or power from that which we have idling. Electrolysis from direct solar cell power is but 1 way to produce Electrolysis. There are others.

As to the power companies and the ways they are doing something today, as our business model, well if you were to try to compete with them, you would have to stand toe to toe and plant to plant. That's not what were trying to do at all. We want purely GREEN POWER Plants with multi applications and backups for the system that are GREEN too.

Now, there are many options to be sure, including 1 found in abundance here in Georgia USA : tons of free chicken litter that can be had for the cost of its delivery. It is a wood shavings and manure by-product from the poultry production houses. But you have to burn it. We had thought of using it as a Woodgas similar to coal gasification, thereby limiting the emissions, but there is some smoke factor and this brings in vexing potential problems. We have such a power producer locally that just went on line, and it works.

GREEN POWER without side effects , that is A goal + small to light commercial applications and homeowner size plants too . There are power incentives also from the D. O. E. and "GREEN CREDIT" selling opportunities too, for larger power producers or sellers and this interest us greatly, but ultimately you need to produce a product "power in this example" that is affordable and sellable , both on the small scale and larger, so that a mortgage on the plant, regardless of its size can be funded and found desirable by the consumer as well as small power producers.

2:17 AM Eastern Time Zone - time for a nap .

Thanks Moose for the tips - no hits yet !

Joe

There is a lot to be gained by eliminating the hydrogen step. Why not go directly from the electricity produced by the solar array to the 5MW electrical power? There is no need to involve hydrogen at all!

As to Natural gas its great & if you were building a conventional power station I would think it to be the right choice for areas that had this supply line at hand. Its not GREEN power but it works great.

When Solar Arrays are set up in the form of solar cells, that just make electricity you would be perhaps correct , sell it to the grid. When the solar array is being used for heating liquid salts or other sub-straights , you would more often get steam power .

This so far is the very GREEN path that we seek.

Here you can sell GREEN power and sell GREEN power credits too.

For those not in the trade, this means you can sell your power twice.

1st

as the power is produced to the grid at what ever deal you can broker.

2nd

as the power is a purely GREEN power those in need of credits to offset their pollution's or enable them to qualify for permission to build a structure in a less than desirable area, or qualify for special funding from tax addition funds earmarked for the development of desirable things, these builders can get special privileges if they have accretions. 1 way they get these accretions is by purchasing GREEN credits.

Buyers pay for this in addition to their regular power bill, at contracted amounts yearly. For example, per 1000 kilowatt hours. It is for a scheduled period of time and they don't buy the actual GREEN power itself , as it is produced, just as all power is feed into a grid like so is the GREEN power. The buyer of the GREEN credit is helping the environment by their purchase, perhaps even seen as purchasing an intangible while making a contribution to the environment helping GREEN power firms more profitable and more likely to produce . We as the producer, sell our power twice .

Now you need a back up system, so that the power levels can stay GREEN and producing but not polluting. There are several methods and we ask ourselves: What do we use ?

Perhaps, if the steam turbine can be caused to generate electric power for our use too, a gas like Hydrogen could be produced and burned in less sunny conditions or at night from this small amount of power we would use. Science has shown that its easy to produce Hydrogen on a small scale on the kitchen table so perhaps a larger table can be built. Then during equipment servicing or failures ( though they be seldom ), Electrolysis not from a solar cell activity , but from the power of the heated salts would produce from our steam powered turbines enough power to get us through darkness while still supplying salable amounts and without larger requirements for the storage of heated salts.

It was proposed by 1 in the group that a gradual step charging, to the point of over capacitance or failure and then discharge of a Ultra-capacitor might could be employed to use very low voltages and create Hydrogen gas that would be consumed by us in non production times. Would you store it - do not know is the only answer I can give as we don't know what can be mass produced to fire boilers , heat liquid salts or spin a steam turbines. The flywheel thought was an additional one, as that we have some large equipment now that will keep spinning long after the power has been cut and this allows it to be intermittently surged with electricity as opposed to constantly powered we are told. These 2 things, added to our power station might be the back up to keep all power produced GREEN and going 24/7 .

Additional Thoughts ?

Thanks

Georgia Adobe LP

Dewy Rose, Georgia

Despite what others tell you, your use is quite feasible other than the use of the internal cobustion engine to drive a generator. As for using solar power to generate hydrogen, there are systems already in production to do this. For the hydrogen generation, please read through the Distributed Energy Material and for added information on the subject, please see what the Department of Energy has to say, too. The first thing you need to do is get a solid background in the problems and understand some of the current solutions proposed. The two sites I give you above are excellent for this understanding. As for the Fuel Cell suggestions I gave in my earlier post, they still stand, however, you may want to use the DoE link to further understand this, too. To date, our research facilities are very very active and our DoE and EPA sites are actively promoting the use of these alternative energy sources. The only ones who are against it are some (not all) of our fossil fuel producers, they are greedy and want to maximize their profits. You are on the right track but do need to continue your search and education on the subject by becoming a well informed consumer.

Dear Sir,

Thank you and I did read your emails and have opened the links you suggested. I will read some more too, before we spend company money in any fashion, but we will still need to find a qualified power engineer to direct us through out.

Any suggestions on that one out here ?

Thanks

Joe

Georgia Adobe:

May I give you a few words of advice? Your continuous, repetitive use of the word "GREEN" (and in capital letters as well) makes me think that I am being preached to by a fanatic who is obsessed with what you call a "very green power energy portfolio".

Coupled with that, when I find on your website that your primary business is the sale of adobe building blocks ... and that your one-page company website is a hosted free by some advertising company known as GoDaddy.com ... then I really do wonder about your ability to develop the systems that you propose.

My advice is that you moderate your use of words like "GREEN", ""very green power energy portfolio" and "proof of life".

What you propose will take the expenditure of a considerable amount of money in development costs and you will probably have to attract some investors. All the more reason not to sound like a fanatic environmentalist.

My intention here is not to offend you, but simply to let you know how your postings sound to me.

I wont post what I was going to say Milton but your a bit off base

Dear Mr. Woodall,

I have sent you email and awaiting to hear soon from you.

Thanks in advance.

T. Paul

A turbine engine is more efficient than an internal combustion engine, however, the most efficient engine for converting hydrogen to electric power is the fuel cell. See Siemens and Acumentrics for some commercial SOFC's in development to be on the market by 2008. There are others that use hydrogen only being developed, however, the SOFC will make its own hydrogen directly from natural gas, syngas, light hydrocarbons, and/or alcohols. In addition, You will find that the Siemens Gas Turbine Hybrid will be exceptionally efficient in the power range you are wanting.

I think that electrolytic generation of hydrogen with the goal of on-site conversion back to electricity makes no sense -- the electricity used to split the water could instead be used directly! Maybe you had a non-electrolytic production method in mind? Anyway, if you want to produce hydrogen via electrolysis, the approach detailed in this report seems to have achieved good efficiencies:

http://www.waterfuelcell.org/WFCprojects/Tero/series_cell_v1.2.pdf

Any electric power generated by solar energy must be done so when the sun is shining msot directly on the soalar cells, which is about 6 hours a day on a clear day. This energy, to be useful when the sun is not shining, about 18 hours a day, must be stored by some means. It can be used ot charge a bank of batteries or it can be stored as hydrogen to be used in a battery, i.e., a fuel cell. The fuel cell is, actually, a battery which uses hydrogen and oxygen as the reactants. The one beauty of the fuel cell battery is that it is very efficient, directly ~50% as a battery, and with heat recovery, would reach up to 85-90% efficiency. The solar cell is a passive generator of DC electric power with conversion efficiencies from about 6% to the latest experimental cell reports of 45-50%. The cost is about $4.50 per watt generated but this output is more or less constant through its life in the sun. It does not make sense to me that one would want to store his power in bulky, heavy, and inefficient storage batteries or depend on just six hours lighting, refrigeration, and entertainment when he can have 24 hours use of a very, very efficient fuel cell that can run on not only hydrogen, but also gases and alcohols produced from biomass.

Also, keep in mind, we cannot take all of the CO₂ from the atmosphere or our plants will all die. So if we simply recycle the carbon in biomass, then we will be in balance with nature. It is teh additional carbon (CO₂ Plus hydrocarbons) that is the problem, not the biomass obtained carbon.

Good point. Storing electrical energy in chemical form (hydrogen in this case), as you explain, might make sense. I had been thinking too narrowly, having recently read about dubious proposals to generate hydrogen on-board an automobile in real time to power and internal combustion engine (as suggested in the link I provided). But the application you described sounds reasonable. And yes, both hydrogen production via electrolysis, and hydrogen oxidation in a fuel cells can exhibit high energy efficiencies (I have heard claims of >90% and >80%, respectively). Also, unlike the energy stored in batteries and capacitors, energy in the form of hydrogen gas can be stored indefinitely without losses.

It does not make sense to me that one would want to store his power in bulky, heavy, and inefficient storage batteries

In stationary installations bulky and heavy are not big problems. And compared to fuel cells, batteries are anything but inefficient. Batteries have been working well in solar and wind installations for many decades, whereas fuel cells are almost non-existent in such applications, and exist mainly as experiments and prototypes. Batteries are remarkably efficient (90% under low discharge rates, 80% or more being typical) whereas many fuel cells work at 50% or 60%, and few effectively recover waste heat. With fuel cells already hideously expensive, adding heat recovery (and the means to use that heat effectively in the summer, or when all your water is already heated) just ads more cost and complexity.

But just as important, fuel cells don't solve the storage issue: you still need to compress the hydrogen to store usable quantities. If you are not worried about embrittlement and leaks, then you can kluge something together, but there are good reasons for the exceptionally high costs of hydrogen storage tanks.

Batteries give you better efficiency, and storage capability

I've followed fuel cells for many years, with the hope of perhaps using one in my hybrid vehicle prototype. But the current situation is no different now than it was in 2003 when this article was written: we are a long long way from economical or practical fuel cells. This is especially true for large installations or even something the size of a car. Laptops, maybe soon. Here's a quote from this article.

Indeed, researchers say that fuel cell costs are currently hovering between $1,000 and $3,000 per kilowatt. To compete with vehicles equipped with internal combustion engines, those figures need to plummet to about $30/kW. "As long as you've got to buy your electrodes at the jewelry store, you can bet you're not going to put fuel cells on the road that are competitive with internal combustion engines," Sadoway said.

Consider that your $50 car battery puts out 13 volts at 500 amps: 6.5 kilowatts. If you wanted a fuel cell that would start your car, you'd pay $6,500 - $19,500. Then you'd need a few thousand $ in tanks to store the hydrogen to run the fuel cell.

I don't think Georgia Adobe has anything quite this expensive in mind.

Hello,

Battery storage of produced electricity is fine and what we have today, but liquid salts are the better mediums for commercial heat storgage. This is a part of the power plant design we are working on now but batteries for individual homes are the best storage vessels affordable today; just checked mine and their full.

The Gallium/Alum process that I noted below makes all this storage not necessary, as the H2 is split from Al when water is added to Ga/Al/28 Cocktail as needed. I hope Dr. Jerry licenses the fuel cell as a commercial offering soon to someone, as this would enable H2 production at will in cars power generating etc. , without any storage.

It makes the H2 safe to use everywhere , I think as you can burn it as you produce. They are releasing a medical power unit this year, (07) , with this technology but home power systems ,are a bit further off he told me, unless someone wants to fund it.

Where's Bill & Melinda Gates - this would be a great humanitarian project as it would benefit everyone.

Joe

I hope Dr. Jerry licenses the fuel cell as a commercial offering soon to someone, as this would enable H2 production at will in cars power generating etc. , without any storage.

I hope that he does get the process to the point of commercial viability too. However, the need for storage is not removed, at all. In a mobile application, you'd need to carry around the water, which by mass is only 11% H2. (He says half of the water would be lost in his process, if they develop a means for recirculating the water.) In addition, you'd need to carry around the aluminum/gallium, as well as the alumina resulting from the reaction. With his latest mixture, he's right at the 2010 DOE target for H2 storage, but that target is too low to be reasonable for a production car: it's a starting point to help with development of prototypes. Also, his figure doesn't seem to take into account the extra water required beyond the quantity split and recirculated.

Also, this is not a fuel cell; it is an alternative to electrolysis for generating the fuel (H2) that a fuel cell uses. A vehicle using this would still need a horribly expensive fuel cell, or would burn the H2 in a combustion engine at 20% efficiency.

As a system, this would be far less efficient than using oil (which shows up at your gas tank with 82% efficiency, including processing, and transportation. The 50% figure Jerry quotes is only for processing, and you'd still need to transport the aluminum/gallium and the alumina both ways from the nuclear power station. I'd guess the overall efficiency is probably half that of the oil economy. Of course, his point that oil is non-renewable is a good one, but as he has pointed out, the aluminum is just an energy carrier, so that you are really powering your car from a nuclear power plant: why not just charge batteries directly from the powerplant?

I think the situation you are trying to obtain is not unlike the condition I need in my hybrid prototype. If its batteries are fully charged when I brake, then the braking energy is lost to heat, because I need to use the friction brakes. If that were the case, then I'd need more storage capacity. In a vehicle, weight is critical, so I don't want to go overboard on capacity, but even so, it is not difficult to find a capacity that always permits regenerative braking, but that is not too heavy. In a stationary system, this is even easier. If you find your batteries are frequently fully charged, then you need more batteries: nothing else in today's technology or on the horizon comes close to storing energy so efficiently.

Consider that one can buy a Tesla, which performs (almost) like a $90,000 Porsche, and costs $92,000. Today's technology could recharge its batteries in 10 minutes, making its 200 mile range a non-issue in any real sense: everyone can afford the time to have a coffee break. (No, the infrastructure is not fully in place, but 480V 3 phase power is available every where -- it's simply a matter of running the wires and using the right transformers -- there are even some home shops (big ones) that use 480. Given the motivation, every Starbucks could have a charging station installed in a day's time.

Batteries, good. Efficient.

H2 economy, bad. Wasteful.

Jerry Woodall's GaAl alloy is a good one and he has done an outstanding job of promoting the concept. I would like to point out that there is another lesser known process like it using Magnesium but without the expensive and hard to find rare earth Gallium. Also, be aware that for batteries in electric autos, the Lithium ion battery is being readied for use. It has far more energy density far lighter than any other rechargeable battery available to date. There is as well, a system of separating hydrogen from steam, CO, and CO₂ that was developed by a Japanese firm, Fine Ceramics, which can be used in the fast starting and lighter PEM fuel cells that use hydrogen only. For the Solar Cells, do not forget to investigate SIGS in place of Silicon. As for hydrogen storage, I read but did not file a story about a hydrocarbon process being developed that stores more hydrogen per unit volume at a far light weight penalty than metal hydrides. The suggestion is that this method would allow enough hydrogen storage to give a driving range of 300 to 400 miles (or about 500 KM). Keep in mind that research is ongoing and is moving very rapidly, being spurred forward, too, by Nanotechnolgy. It is very important for us, as engineers, to keep up with this amazing progress.

Has anyone done their safety homework? What happens when a cement truck runs over my LIPoly battery or magnesium H2 generator and opens them up or shorts them, causing a fire? Magnesium fires like water and Li is toxic as heck.

Ray Tomlin FF, EMT-P

Hello,

It seems that I may have overlooked the family tree in my search of practicing engineers . Here a link to a NPR broadcast on June 1, 2007, that I found in my research that will introduce a simple solution . The program details how Gallium Aluminum and water are used to produce Hydrogen at a highly efficient rate and it even has a 50% recovery rate after use. I think I have a winner !

Heres the National Public Radio Link

http://www.npr.org/templates/dmg/popup.php?id=10621224&type=1&date=01-Jun-2007&au=1&pid=12472550&random=3051414032&guid=000019F3F59806D4586AEFD761626364&uaType=WM,RM&aaType=RM,WM&upf=Win32&topicName=Health___Science&subtopicName=Health___Science&prgCode=TOTN&hubId=-1&thingId=10621223&ssid=&tableModifier=&mtype=WM

I think that I've Just gotta remember to ask those wiser elders first, from now on ! It seems Dr. Jerry Woodall ( my name sake too) over at Perdue University, had the answer all along , If I had just bothered to ask - Oh Well , next time.

Additionally , We found a local power engineering Co. too, in GA., thats ready to help.

Thanks to all of you that were so helpful here & on the side & If I can return the favor let me know.

Best Regards,

Joe Woodall

Georgia Adobe

www.georgiaadobe.com

706-283-2444

And here is a 30 min video of the process that I forgot to add above.

http://hydrogen.ecn.purdue.edu/2007.05.01-Woodall/

and the Purdue page thats from:

http://www.purdue.edu/dp/energy/centers/hydrogen.php

Georgia Adobe

Joe Woodall

www.georgiaadobe.com

706-283-2444