Hydrogen Production from Solar Reaches Milestone....?

"This month, Honda, Toyota and Hyundai all announced plans to produce hydrogen fuel-cell passenger vehicles in the next few years. These cars will run on compressed hydrogen - and emit only water vapor as exhaust."

"For a long time, hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles were seen as a tantalizing technology to help reduce society's dependency on oil. In theory, fuel-cell vehicles could charge in minutes and go for hundreds of miles before refueling - overcoming the disadvantages of plug-in electric cars with their bulky batteries and limited ranges.

But the vehicles themselves were seen as forbiddingly expensive, and the challenges in setting up a hydrogen fueling infrastructure looked insurmountable. That explains why hydrogen lost its allure in the 2000s, particularly as batteries improved and electric vehicles became a reality. In 2009, the U.S. Department of Energy shifted its research and funding away from hydrogen and toward battery-driven electric cars.

Now the pendulum may be swinging back. Plug-in electric cars aren't selling quite as well as their advocates once hoped. And the cost of hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles seems to be dropping. Could hydrogen be in for a comeback? Or are the obstacles still too steep?"

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/11/27/forget-plug-in-electric-cars-toyota-is-betting-on-hydrogen-fuel-cells/

"A presentation made by Belgian researchers at Electric Vehicle Symposium (EVS) 27 in Barcelona might irk fans of battery-driven EVs. A new study found that the numbers prove fuel cell hybrid electric vehicle (FCHEV) powertrains partnered with supercapacitors have better fuel economy than powertrains that blend a fuel cell and a battery.

An Evaluation Study of Current and Future Fuel Cell Hybrid Electric Vehicles Powertrains was written by eight Belgian researchers, who studied different FCHEV powertrain combinations and designs. This included fuel cell/supercapacitor, fuel cell/battery, and a combination of supercapacitors and batteries. One reason the fuel cell/supercapacitor combination won was because it could be charged or discharged at a high current, beyond the level at which the battery can function. Its fuel economy is also higher, despite the likely extra weight, and it performs more efficiently than the fuel cell/battery or fuel cell/battery/supercapacitor hybrid electric vehicle powertrains (which have the wonderful new abbreviation FC/B/SC HEV)."

http://green.autoblog.com/2013/12/05/hydrogen-fuel-cells-and-supercapacitors-make-best-powertrain/

"SAN DIEGO, March 25, 2012 - The long-sought technology for enabling the fabled "hydrogen economy" - an era based on hydrogen fuel that replaces gasoline, diesel and other fossil fuels, easing concerns about foreign oil and air pollution - has been available for decades and could begin commercial production of hydrogen in this decade, a scientist reported here today.

Speaking at the 243rd National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS), the world's largest scientific society, Ibrahim Khamis, Ph.D., described how heat from existing nuclear plants could be used in the more economical production of hydrogen, with future plants custom-built for hydrogen production. He is with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna, Austria.

"There is rapidly growing interest around the world in hydrogen production using nuclear power plants as heat sources," Khamis said. "Hydrogen production using nuclear energy could reduce dependence on oil for fueling motor vehicles and the use of coal for generating electricity. In doing so, hydrogen could have a beneficial impact on global warming, since burning hydrogen releases only water vapor and no carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas. There is a dramatic reduction in pollution.""

http://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/pressroom/newsreleases/2012/march/nuclear-power-plants-can-produce-hydrogen-to-fuel-the-hydrogen-economy.html

"Some prototype Generation IV reactors operate at 850 to 1000 degrees Celsius, considerably hotter than existing commercial nuclear power plants. General Atomics predicts that hydrogen produced in a High Temperature Gas Cooled Reactor (HTGR) would cost $1.53/kg. In 2003, steam reforming of natural gas yielded hydrogen at $1.40/kg. At 2005 gas prices, hydrogen cost $2.70/kg.^{[citation needed]} Hence, just within the United States, a savings of tens of billions of dollars per year is possible with a nuclear-powered supply. Much of this savings would translate into reduced oil and natural gas imports.

One side benefit of a nuclear reactor that produces both electricity and hydrogen is that it can shift production between the two. For instance, the plant might produce electricity during the day and hydrogen at night, matching its electrical generation profile to the daily variation in demand. If the hydrogen can be produced economically, this scheme would compete favorably with existing grid energy storage schemes. What is more, there is sufficient hydrogen demand in the United States that all daily peak generation could be handled by such plants.^[14] However,Generation IV reactors are not expected until 2030 and it is uncertain if they can compete by then in safety and supply with the distributed generation concept.^{[original research?]"}

^{http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_splitting}

http://www1.eere.energy.gov/hydrogenandfuelcells/production/water_splitting.html

Book....

That's an amazingly high/mediocre/low production rate; take your pick.

I've been watching this stuff for years...still havn't seen it make it commercially but I'm hopefulhttp://www.technologyreview.com/view/512996/a-cheaper-way-to-make-hydrogen-from-water/

SE has correctly copied that figure of 1/40 th of a litre of Hydrogen per hour. I figured it had to be a typo so I looked for another source.

I found this http://www.upc.edu/saladepremsa/al-dia/mes-noticies/researchers-design-a-new-catalyst-to-produce-hydrogen-from-water-and-sunlight?set_language=en

which says the same thing and contains the additional information:- "Assuming eight hours of sunlight a day, the scientists estimate that an area measuring 10 x 10 km would be needed to produce hydrogen on an industrial scale."

Doesn't look too promising to me.

"Most of today's hydrogen plants produce about 300 tons of hydrogen a day; this new method has been proven to produce 0.025 liters of hydrogen an hour using only one gram of catalyst."

How does liters of H² per hour relate to tons per day?

What will the required infra structure cost?

1 liter of hydrogen weighs .0898G....and there is 1 mil grams in a ton....so that would be a zillion liters per ton....or possibly ~11,135,857.46 • 300 = 3340757238 40G catalyst per liter = 133,630 tons of catalyst to produce 300 tons of hydrogen...

If you really use up the catalyst then this is a dead horse where they want to put the saddle on unless ( but most unlikly) we are talking about common sand as catalyst here . . .

I can produce more H2 with another well known catlalyst, it even might be easier to milk H2 out of onions . . .

Where's your "can do" spirit.

All you need is a railroad siding and 1,337 rail car loads of catalyst a day.

A catalyst by definition is not sacrificial.....

Oops, that's right.

All you need is 1,337 rail cars of catalyst.

Yes but the market value is $2k per ton.....that's 600k per day....220 mil yr....

What's the plant cost?

We are talking Gold here, right? 1337 rail cars full of it?

Let me know when the train goes! What a heist! Nobody will notice the one rail car missing!

We're talking about "both "optical properties of three-dimensional photonic crystals, and two to three "gold nanoparticles to develop a highly active catalyst powder".

No telling what it costs.

Probably the same price as Dilithium crystals or is it cheap as Obtanium?

Naa it has gold in it, it must be Eeexpeensive!

Ballpark est of nanoparticles per gram of gold...

Density of Au is 19.32 g/cm³

Volume of 1 gram Au = 1/19.32=5.176x10^-2 cm³

For spherical nanoparticles of 15 nm, volume of one particle = 4/3 x Pi x (7.5 x 10^-7)³ cm³ = 1.767 x 10^-18 cm³

Therefore, number of nanoparticles in 1 gram = [5.176 x 10^-2]/[1.767 x 10^-18] = 2.929 x 10¹⁶ nanoparticles


current price ~$400. per gram

http://www.us-nano.com/inc/sdetail/133

...as for 3D photonic crystals, well the're made from butterfly wings....

Gold is ca. 40 per gram! Ten times more for Nano Pano?

Whosh! Where is the train again?

I probably invest the money in a good old coal power plant and leave the hydrogen production to the hydrogen heads (sorry H head - no offense meant!)

Oh wait that would be for 300 tons of hydrogen in an hour......Only 4734 tons for 24 hours....

I would like hydrogen as a fuel but you can't store it easily and it brittles the containers and almost everything it contacts. Its cost of production is still very high.

Propane and methane would be a much better alternative for a long transition period. Methane can be easily produce from waste digestion. The CO2 released should probably be lower than with gasoline making the greens happy.

Making methane from hydrogen would be a way to recycle some of the carbon captured. This is not the Utopian ideal of the all hydrogen society but is is a feasible stepping stone.

There is currently ~2000 steam reforming plants around the world that produce ~75 million tons of hydrogen annually from natural gas.....Most of this hydrogen is used to produce fertilizer and in the petrochemical field in oil cracking to make gasoline and other products not to mention a great deal of chemical processing to make , well, most everything.....here is an excerpt from an article last year ↓

"Major companies are moving to expand production to meet the worldwide demand for hydrogen. Last week, Air Liquide, a world leader in gases for industry, health and the environment, announced the start up of a new steam methane reforming plant in La Porte, Texas, just east of Houston. The estimated 120 million standard cubic feet per day of gaseous hydrogen produced by this SMR plant will feed into the company's pipeline system along the Texas Gulf Coast, including the recently built 85 mile pipeline expansion to supply refineries in Port Arthur, Texas. The hydrogen will be used in the oil refining process to convert heavy crude oil into clean burning transportation fuels and petrochemical feed stocks.

In addition to the benefits of hydrogen in manufacturing cleaner gasoline, the gas increasingly is being used with fuel cells for transit buses and fork lift trucks for materials handling. Earlier this month, Air Liquide announced a demonstration project for a hydrogen-powered fuel cell transit bus in Birmingham, Alabama. In January 2012, Air Liquide began supplying hydrogen to a fleet of 37 hydrogen-powered fuel cell forklifts at a leading soft drink maker's bottling and distribution facility in California. Elton concluded, "$150 billion a year is a big market and it promises to get even larger. If hydrogen, the cleanest and greenest of all fuels, is widely adopted to power vehicles, then it could become a $1 trillion a year market. We are positioning our breakthrough catalyst to take full advantage of that market.""
http://www.carbonsciences.com/view_news.php?id=118

Current Fischer-Tropsch technology can synthesis high grade jet fuel, gasoline, diesel, or what have you from two simple things: carbon dioxide and hydrogen. U. S. Navy has already announced plans to capitalize on this for the nuclear aircraft carrier fleet, so that tender ships need not approach to re-supply jet fuel.

Quite frankly, 5% solar efficiency is simply not economical, nor is the 1 hour catalyst life as reported by U of H researchers. But it does represent a good start. Now if they can just get rid of the cobalt (needed for turbine blades, etc.), and use iron instead, we may just have something. I would be more interested in (1) catalytic reduction of CO2 to CO, then using that to produce fuels, or (2) nano tech carbon being used to induce steam production at low temperatures (Rice University, also in Houston), that could be utilized to generate power, sanitize goods, etc.

I still think HOD (hydrogen on demand) using scrap aluminum holds way more promise than this. BTW HOD can reduce fuel consumption, rather increase fuel economy by 30% in diesel engines, and large piston engines that burn Bunker C. Technologies may be developed in the future that utilize Magnesium rather than aluminum scrap, and magnesium can be made through laser heating of magnesium oxide, and the lasers can be solar-pumped. Surely there are a plethora of opportunities to explore.

New Device Harnesses Sun and Sewage to Produce Hydrogen Fuel

"Oct. 10, 2013 - A novel device that uses only sunlight and wastewater to produce hydrogen gas could provide a sustainable energy source while improving the efficiency of wastewater treatment.

A research team led by Yat Li, associate professor of chemistry at the University of California, Santa Cruz, developed the solar-microbial device and reported their results in a paper published in the American Chemical Society journal ACS Nano. The hybrid device combines a microbial fuel cell (MFC) and a type of solar cell called a photoelectrochemical cell (PEC). In the MFC component, bacteria degrade organic matter in the wastewater, generating electricity in the process. The biologically generated electricity is delivered to the PEC component to assist the solar-powered splitting of water (electrolysis) that generates hydrogen and oxygen.

Either a PEC or MFC device can be used alone to produce hydrogen gas. Both, however, require a small additional voltage (an "external bias") to overcome the thermodynamic energy barrier for proton reduction into hydrogen gas. The need to incorporate an additional electric power element adds significantly to the cost and complication of these types of energy conversion devices, especially at large scales. In comparison, Li's hybrid solar-microbial device is self-driven and self-sustained, because the combined energy from the organic matter (harvested by the MFC) and sunlight (captured by the PEC) is sufficient to drive electrolysis of water."

complete article...

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/10/131010205331.htm