A new way to store it? Could be useful terrestrially, but probably not for space vehicles.
14 thoughts on “Hydrogen”
I still think Hydrogen as a domestic fuel is idiotic. Methane, Ethane, Propane or Butane are much better ways to store hydrogen for anything but a rocket and Elon apparently does not care for it for that purpose even, preferring the much simplified handling and logistics of Methane.
Power the car on CNG or use the methane to make methanol or polymerize it into butanol. my understanding is that little to no modifications would be needed to run current vehicles on butanol as it does not have the moisture absorbing issues of methanol.
Ammonia makes an excellent hydrogen transport, and there are fuel cells that use an
ammonia reformer as a feed stock. Ammonia is stable at ambient conditions, and we have
a good infrastructure to distribute it. It also can be made directly from electricity
making it an excellent renewable energy transport mechanism.
Ammonia in large concentrations is very toxic.
That article is full of misinformation. There have been people working on solid hydrogen storage for quite some time. The issue is it is damned hard to create the solids to begin with, energetically inefficient, then there is the issue with working with powders and so on if you want to make it easy to refuel.
The whole hydrogen thing reminds me of the old truism about a good Engineer solving problems and the great Engineer avoiding them in the first place.
I recall reading in the mid to late 1970s about a hydrogen-powered city bus (IIRC, in Munich) that used metallic hydride storage. A quick Google search shows this company with a range of metallic hydride hydrogen storage tanks up to 7,000 liters capacity. I’m sure there are others. Hydrogen pumped into the tank binds with the metallic hydride and is released by heating the tank.
The solid that stores H2 is Lithium Hydrazinidoborane.
Hydrazine, dunno, is a kind of higher molecular weight ammonia, just as gasoline is the same for methane and propanol and butanol are the same for methanol? Sounds poisonous, like something with “cyanide” in the title?
And borane. Wasn’t there something about boron compounds as a “zip fuel” in the early Jet Age, only the stuff was also quite poisonous? Just asking.
Boranes are spontaneously inflammable in air, too, although that doesn’t necessarily apply to the lithium compound. Frankly, I don’t know whether it is or not.
For terrestrial use, I would think that using the hydrogen to make some easily handled liquid fuel is the way to go for use in anything but space vehicles; the higher energy density of hydrogen is really important for rockets but not nearly as much for a plane and almost insignificant for a car. Methanol is quite easy to make if a supply of hydrogen is available; sure it’s toxic, but petroleum fuels aren’t all that good in that respect either, and water-soluble stuff such as methanol is much easier to clean up.
As for butanol as a fuel – HELL NO! IC engines are not perfectly efficient, and burning butanol would probably produce a significant amount of butanoic acid. Meaning that a sketchily maintained butanol-burning car would stink of rancid butter and/or smelly feet. No thanks!
” butanol-burning car would stink of rancid butter and/or smelly feet”
Hoo-wee that’s ripe! Hey Mac, you either gotta change your socks or clean your injectors!
Maybe “foot odor” coming from the tailpipe would be an incentive that people would maintain their car? Maybe butanol should be added to fuel to shame people out of being enviro-scofflaws. I mean, who wants their Bimmer to smell like unwashed gym socks . . .
After writing that comment, I did a bit of web research and found that butanoic acid is also the main odour component in vomit. Which rather amplifies my point…
So whenever a fancy new car would go by, all you would want to do is start retching. =)
Now THAT is a marketing feature!
Isn’t water how most hydrogen stored on earth?
The problem is all that waste oxygen. Perhaps they could burn it? Say with gasoline? 😉
It might be one of the most lethal-to-humankind ways to store hydrogen, but Dihydrogen Monoxide (DHMO) is a colorless and odorless chemical compound, also referred to assimply Hydric acid. Its basis is the highly reactive hydroxyl radical, a species shown to mutate DNA, denature proteins, disrupt cell membranes, and chemically alter critical neurotransmitters. The atomic components of DHMO are found in a number of caustic, explosive and poisonous compounds such as Sulfuric Acid, Nitroglycerine and Ethyl Alcohol.
Extreme exposure to Hydric acid is 100% LETHAL to Humans! So I don’t see how anyone can seriously support using it as a hydrogen storage methodology, even though it is extremely effective. The environmental impact of the rupture of any very large Hydric acid containment facility is extremely harmful and causes widespread damage.
So I urge you to think about the impact before your criticize my plea!
Hydrogen is just the potential energy form of electricity. Hydrogen is not a “fuel” it is a transport medium. It’s synthesis for use as a fuel involves consumption of energy from another form to produce. Also note that the exergy of hydrogen is terrible. Among the bottom of fuels. Thus you constantly need to replenish it and storage of useful quantities outside of dangerous compression techniques requires the usual transfer through solids as mentioned in this article. Metal hydrides have been also used and were promoted as far back as the 80s as a potentially “safe” method of storing hydrogen in low pressure form. Also note that the fuel/air mixture of hydrogen & air that is explosive is far far broader than that for gasoline. IIRC pretty much for any other fuel you can think of. Making it far far far more hazardous to handle than gasoline. Finally, if you had electricity that was “too cheap to meter” then you’d just electrolyze water at the fueling station and pump hydrogen directly into your vehicle and rely on the electrical grid for distribution. OTOH if you have electricity that was too cheap to meter why fool with hydrogen at all and just go straight to EVs with modern batteries? The hydrogen economy is a myth. When you look at it closely it’s just a flim-flam sham for what ultimately has to be an electric economy if it is to be viable. And if that is the case why not just skip that flammable and dangerous middle man?
I still think Hydrogen as a domestic fuel is idiotic. Methane, Ethane, Propane or Butane are much better ways to store hydrogen for anything but a rocket and Elon apparently does not care for it for that purpose even, preferring the much simplified handling and logistics of Methane.
Power the car on CNG or use the methane to make methanol or polymerize it into butanol. my understanding is that little to no modifications would be needed to run current vehicles on butanol as it does not have the moisture absorbing issues of methanol.
Ammonia makes an excellent hydrogen transport, and there are fuel cells that use an
ammonia reformer as a feed stock. Ammonia is stable at ambient conditions, and we have
a good infrastructure to distribute it. It also can be made directly from electricity
making it an excellent renewable energy transport mechanism.
Ammonia in large concentrations is very toxic.
That article is full of misinformation. There have been people working on solid hydrogen storage for quite some time. The issue is it is damned hard to create the solids to begin with, energetically inefficient, then there is the issue with working with powders and so on if you want to make it easy to refuel.
The whole hydrogen thing reminds me of the old truism about a good Engineer solving problems and the great Engineer avoiding them in the first place.
I recall reading in the mid to late 1970s about a hydrogen-powered city bus (IIRC, in Munich) that used metallic hydride storage. A quick Google search shows this company with a range of metallic hydride hydrogen storage tanks up to 7,000 liters capacity. I’m sure there are others. Hydrogen pumped into the tank binds with the metallic hydride and is released by heating the tank.
The solid that stores H2 is Lithium Hydrazinidoborane.
Hydrazine, dunno, is a kind of higher molecular weight ammonia, just as gasoline is the same for methane and propanol and butanol are the same for methanol? Sounds poisonous, like something with “cyanide” in the title?
And borane. Wasn’t there something about boron compounds as a “zip fuel” in the early Jet Age, only the stuff was also quite poisonous? Just asking.
Boranes are spontaneously inflammable in air, too, although that doesn’t necessarily apply to the lithium compound. Frankly, I don’t know whether it is or not.
For terrestrial use, I would think that using the hydrogen to make some easily handled liquid fuel is the way to go for use in anything but space vehicles; the higher energy density of hydrogen is really important for rockets but not nearly as much for a plane and almost insignificant for a car. Methanol is quite easy to make if a supply of hydrogen is available; sure it’s toxic, but petroleum fuels aren’t all that good in that respect either, and water-soluble stuff such as methanol is much easier to clean up.
As for butanol as a fuel – HELL NO! IC engines are not perfectly efficient, and burning butanol would probably produce a significant amount of butanoic acid. Meaning that a sketchily maintained butanol-burning car would stink of rancid butter and/or smelly feet. No thanks!
” butanol-burning car would stink of rancid butter and/or smelly feet”
Hoo-wee that’s ripe! Hey Mac, you either gotta change your socks or clean your injectors!
Maybe “foot odor” coming from the tailpipe would be an incentive that people would maintain their car? Maybe butanol should be added to fuel to shame people out of being enviro-scofflaws. I mean, who wants their Bimmer to smell like unwashed gym socks . . .
After writing that comment, I did a bit of web research and found that butanoic acid is also the main odour component in vomit. Which rather amplifies my point…
So whenever a fancy new car would go by, all you would want to do is start retching. =)
Now THAT is a marketing feature!
Isn’t water how most hydrogen stored on earth?
The problem is all that waste oxygen. Perhaps they could burn it? Say with gasoline? 😉
It might be one of the most lethal-to-humankind ways to store hydrogen, but Dihydrogen Monoxide (DHMO) is a colorless and odorless chemical compound, also referred to assimply Hydric acid. Its basis is the highly reactive hydroxyl radical, a species shown to mutate DNA, denature proteins, disrupt cell membranes, and chemically alter critical neurotransmitters. The atomic components of DHMO are found in a number of caustic, explosive and poisonous compounds such as Sulfuric Acid, Nitroglycerine and Ethyl Alcohol.
Extreme exposure to Hydric acid is 100% LETHAL to Humans! So I don’t see how anyone can seriously support using it as a hydrogen storage methodology, even though it is extremely effective. The environmental impact of the rupture of any very large Hydric acid containment facility is extremely harmful and causes widespread damage.
So I urge you to think about the impact before your criticize my plea!
Hydrogen is just the potential energy form of electricity. Hydrogen is not a “fuel” it is a transport medium. It’s synthesis for use as a fuel involves consumption of energy from another form to produce. Also note that the exergy of hydrogen is terrible. Among the bottom of fuels. Thus you constantly need to replenish it and storage of useful quantities outside of dangerous compression techniques requires the usual transfer through solids as mentioned in this article. Metal hydrides have been also used and were promoted as far back as the 80s as a potentially “safe” method of storing hydrogen in low pressure form. Also note that the fuel/air mixture of hydrogen & air that is explosive is far far broader than that for gasoline. IIRC pretty much for any other fuel you can think of. Making it far far far more hazardous to handle than gasoline. Finally, if you had electricity that was “too cheap to meter” then you’d just electrolyze water at the fueling station and pump hydrogen directly into your vehicle and rely on the electrical grid for distribution. OTOH if you have electricity that was too cheap to meter why fool with hydrogen at all and just go straight to EVs with modern batteries? The hydrogen economy is a myth. When you look at it closely it’s just a flim-flam sham for what ultimately has to be an electric economy if it is to be viable. And if that is the case why not just skip that flammable and dangerous middle man?