Hydrogen Fuel

[River Goat]

I think hydrogen is neat stuff. I have been making and playing with it since I was ten years old. I think it has potential for practical energy storage. But, I think the public is being mislead. I have read a number of news articles about hydrogen being the energy source of the future, that will clean up our air and eliminate our dependence on fossil fuels. Free hydrogen, in any usable quantities, doesn't exist on this planet; it has to be extracted from mixtures and molecules. Large amounts of energy are required to produce the pure hydrogen to be used as fuel. In this system, hydrogen isn't an energy source, it is a method of energy transport.

I wonder if some people with interests in fossil fuels are planning to use those fossil fuels as the source of the great hydrogen infrastructure; I also wonder if they realize how easy it is to make at home?

Just some thoughts,

River Goat (Jerry)

[wooferhound]

How easy is Hydrogen to make at home ?

[River Goat]

Wooferhound, Electrolysis is what I have always used. You apply a dc voltage (6-12volts works good) to a pair of electrodes in a container of water; the current splits the H2O into Oxygen that bubbles from the positive electrode and Hydrogen from the negative electrode. This link has some good info;

http://www.nmsea.org/Curriculum/7_12/electrolysis/electrolysis.htm

The positive electrode is exposed to pure Oxygen, so most metals will quickly corrode; I used the graphite center electrode from a dry cell battery. A jar filled with water, inverted over the electrode, will collect the gas. With some refinements a practical system could be built. Storing it is the problem.

River Goat

[thunderhead]

Yes, the oil giants are planning to make hydrogen from oil, and presumably throw away the carbon that is left over.  The hydrogen can be used to fuel conventional ICE cars (producing NOx pollutants, same as modern cars) or used in fuel cell electric cars.  However, when the oil runs out hydrogen can still be made using renewable sources and electrolysis of water.

Hydrogen will also be useful in making non-polluting aircraft.

The problem is storage and transport: hydrogen is only really practicable in liquid form, and is only liquid at a few degrees above absolute zero.  The idea of keeping a can in the boot to get you home will be gone.  What is more, the cryogenic storage means that hydrogen will always be boiling off, and that is a fire hazard.  If you leave your car parked somewhere and come back to it a while later, all the fuel may have evaporated.  If the carpark is not well ventilated, when the next smoker wanders down to get his car, he'll end up on Mars.

My interest is electric cars, which seem more practicable for personal transport.

[dunit]

G'day bloke,

           I've been reading quite a  few of these ideas, solar,hydrogen,wind generators etc.

Some years ago now I looked into hydrogen as a fuel for a reciprocating internal combustion engine. I have reams of info & it is possible to determine to the molecule how many electron volts is required for any given amount of hydrogen produced per minute or second etc.

           At the time that I was conducting my reserch into hydrogen as a fuel, I was employed by a company called Johnson Matthey. This company are certainly one of, if not the foremost of companies in the manufacture of catalytic systems.

Suffice it to say that I was privy to information & equipment that have allowed me to determine with some authority that this particular project, by no means impossible, would pose not a few practical & technical difficulties, which I quickly discerned were not within my practical or financial reach.  

           My reserch into hydrogen fuel culminated in a meeting with a wonderfully helpfull professional scientist whom at that time was employed at the Nuclear reserch fascility at Lucas Heights located in Sydney Australia.

Some years before my meeting with this scientist, he had performed lengthy & detailed experiments with a rotory internal combustion engine. Among many other topics we discussed, was a similar project undertaken by the engineering faculty at the uni of Melbourne on a reciprocating internal combustion engine. This gentileman spoke to me of his experiments at length. I am supremely confident that to engineer a normal internal combustion engineto enable it to "run" on a hydrogen air mixture is beyond the expertise of any backyard Joe to accomplish.

In the case of manufacturing hydrogen from water(simple) whilst using the manufactured hydrogen to run the engine thus manufacturing more hydrogen is plain terms, perpetual motion & don't allow anyone to tell you that this is possible.

             I hope this enables you to move on to greener & more productive pastures

      All the best to you        Dunit.

[finnsawyer]

When all the hype about the hydrogen economy developed I decided to see if I could bring some of the ideas I have about wind energy to fruition (don't hold your breath).  While I realize fuel cells are iffy, I also thought hydrogen could be used "in situ", perhaps by farmers or others.  It appears that it can be added to the air intake of engines to reduce fuel needs.  It certainly can be used for heating.  Low pressure storage appears doable, if not desireable.  So it may have a place for alternate energy users.  One thing I have'nt gotten a handle on is the efficiency attainable with electrolysis.

[hvirtane]

I am supremely confident that to engineer a normal internal combustion engine to enable it to "run" on a hydrogen air mixture is beyond the expertise of any backyard Joe to accomplish.

I don't think it to be at all impossible

for some backyard Joes.

By the way first successful wind turbines

to produce electricity in Denmark actually

produced hydrogen.

- Hannu

[kirk]

the only "safe" way to store hydrogen is as a hydride

[nothing to lose]

"I am supremely confident that to engineer a normal internal combustion engineto enable it to "run" on a hydrogen air mixture is beyond the expertise of any backyard Joe to accomplish.

In the case of manufacturing hydrogen from water(simple) whilst using the manufactured hydrogen to run the engine thus manufacturing more hydrogen is plain terms, perpetual motion & don't allow anyone to tell you that this is possible."

I totally disagree. If hydrogen is a flamable explosive gas (such as propane, natural gas, methane etc..) then why should it be so hard to run an engine on it? We use many other gas gases. Sure might be concerns such as heat, water, rust, burnt valves, but all can be over come.

And in no way is producing hydrogen from water the same as perpetual motion!

You are using the water as a form of feul, the water will need replaced!

Using an engine to power the process of making the hydrogen to run the engine is in no way perpetual motion! That is almost the same as saying using the engine to produce the power to run an electric feul pump to feed gasoline and injecters is perpetaul motion!

Niether is corect! Water or gasoline is the fuel to run the engine and both will be used up and have to be replaced to keep the engine running.

Not to be insulting, but would you reffer to rain as perpetaul motion? It falls, it rises, it falls, that is energy (movement) going both directions,  up and down!

Of course you would need some way to evaporate the water to make it rise, so it is not perpetaul motion because you have extras to consider like heat from the sun.

Also you would not be using just the water to power the engine! If so you could just use the oxygen from the water to feul the fire from the hydrogen, but you will need more than just that so you have outside air comming in to feul the fire also.

.

[DanB]

"I totally disagree. If hydrogen is a flamable explosive gas (such as propane, natural gas, methane etc..) then why should it be so hard to run an engine on it? We use many other gas gases. Sure might be concerns such as heat, water, rust, burnt valves, but all can be over come."

I think it's quite easy to run an engine on it.  Tricky thing is storing a significant amount of it and doing so safely.  Most fuels (like propane or nat. gas etc....) are pretty picky about the fuel air mixture before they can explode.  Hydrogen doesnt care hardly at all... just about any amount of oxygen results in an explosive mixture.

"Using an engine to power the process of making the hydrogen to run the engine is in no way perpetual motion! That is almost the same as saying using the engine to produce the power to run an electric feul pump to feed gasoline and injecters is perpetaul motion!

Niether is corect! Water or gasoline is the fuel to run the engine and both will be used up and have to be replaced to keep the engine running."

It is kind of like perpetual motion if you think your going to create it with the same amount, or less - energy than you'll get from burning it.  Electrolysis is a very inefficient thing, you'll get a fraction of the energy back out from the hydrogen than it took to break it from the water.  The water is not a fuel.  Were getting power from a chemical reaction here.  Once we burn the hydrogen - its combined back with oxygen and the same amount of water we started with comes out the tail pipe.  So - the water is not fuel - its a source of hydrogen.  once we use the hydrogen, we have the water back again.  You could run an engine with a specific amount of water (youd have to collect the exhaust) - but you'd be dumping way more energy into splitting the water into hydrogen/oxygen than youll ever get back out of the motor.

"Not to be insulting, but would you reffer to rain as perpetaul motion? It falls, it rises, it falls, that is energy (movement) going both directions,  up and down!"

Not perpetual motion.  Its the result of the solar energy.  (Wireless fusion power ;-)  )

Once the sun burns up all its fuel (And it will...) the rain will stop.

"Of course you would need some way to evaporate the water to make it rise, so it is not perpetaul motion because you have extras to consider like heat from the sun."

Yes, exactly...

Hydrogen might make sense as a system of storing energy someday - its good that there is research going on.  I think our govt would do better to start catching up on some other more useful things though - like wind power...  fusion???  Solar?? - things that work now.  It becomes practical I think when we have more power than we know what to do with and have to dump power somewhere!  Then the inefficient process of making hydrogen might not matter so much - if we had lots of wind turbines and theyre making more power than we can use, why not!

One other important thing to consider with hydrogen that I dont think has been mentioned.  The really effective way to make hydrogen is not electrolysis... it has to do with superheating water and then the hydrogen breaks off easily.  The way they plan to do this is with Nuclear reactors (fission).  Depending on how you feel about fission reactors... this is either a great thing (because they might make cheap clean power) or a horrible thing, because they leave us with very radioactive waste that nobody wants and we dont really know what to do with it... and, sometimes they melt down!  But - the real plan of the "hydrogen economy" that our govt has proposed involves nuclear reactors.  Its kind of efficient, because they not only make hydrogen, but all the heat can be reclaimed to run steam turbines and make electricity at the same time.  I personally find it all a somewhat scary though. Good old lead acid batteries start looking pleasant by comparison.   They havnt even figured out how to use or store the stuff yet!  There is currently no way to put enough in a car to go very far.

[finnsawyer]

O.K. Its 75 - 80%.  Not bad. Definitely an area to look at.  Combine this with wind power at 60% and it looks like it's got possibilities.

[wanttoknow]

    Dunit ?

Can you tell me how much electrical current it takes to produces one gallen of water in to Hydrogen and Oxygen. If posible can you tell me how much energy the Hydrogen from one gallen of water could produces? Any thing will help.