Hydrogen vs. Battery

[JeffK]

2013 US Air force lab Ohio: Nano particles of Al
2017 US Army lab Maryland:
"previous attempts to drive the reaction required high temperatures or catalysts, and were slow: obtaining the hydrogen took hours and was around 50 per cent efficient."
"Ours does it to nearly 100 per cent efficiency in less than 3 minutes,”

I guess efficient means that 100% of Al reacts.

Perhaps there is real progress, instead of "We have to publish to get money to continue".

Resulting Al oxide must be transported back to factory for 'recharging'. To me this seems best way for long term safe storage of hydrogen. So hydrogen will not replace batteries in most tasks.

But it is not useless. 100 kWh Tesla battery has 300(?) kg of cells. Rest is protection and cooling. 30 kg of Al alloy might give 100 kWh. If some task requires much more than 100 kWh, Al-H2 fuel cell would enable an EV to do it. So not for every day normal usage, but sometimes useful.

The other claims are BS too. I can cite a few papers from the early 2000s were the reaction is always done at room temp and takes only minutes. I'm not even sure why they were allowed to publish unless some part of their approach was novel, but it sounds like it's not. They make it sound like the "discovery" is recent which really erks me.

It will never be economically feasible or environmentally friendly or energy efficient. Note the reaction is highly exothermic.
ICEs don't have to recycle gas every time you fill up, EVs don't need to recycle batteries every time they charge.

Every couple hundred miles I don't want to fill up with water, aluminum, and dump my current aluminum oxide. I'm sure there are uses for the technology, but mass market EVs will never be one of them... ever.

 

[jkn]

The other claims are BS too. I can cite a few papers from the early 2000s were the reaction is always done at room temp and takes only minutes. I'm not even sure why they were allowed to publish unless some part of their approach was novel, but it sounds like it's not. They make it sound like the "discovery" is recent which really erks me.

It will never be economically feasible or environmentally friendly or energy efficient. Note the reaction is highly exothermic.
ICEs don't have to recycle gas every time you fill up, EVs don't need to recycle batteries every time they charge.

Every couple hundred miles I don't want to fill up with water, aluminum, and dump my current aluminum oxide. I'm sure there are uses for the technology, but mass market EVs will never be one of them... ever.

Perhaps novelty is 'nearly 100 per cent Al reacts with water' or not using reactive chemicals like NaOH. There is no need refill much water, because fuel cell does produce water. If energy density is 10*of lithium ion, then refill of Al is not 'every couple hundred miles'. More like 'every couple thousand miles. I agree that this is not for mass market for EV. Fuel cell price has to come down before it is mass market on any product. Highly exothermic reaction takes stealth advantage of an EV away.

 

[renim]

can it make an underwater torpedo go 10% or more further?

if yes, then at least it has meaningful naval application.

 

[nwdiver]

Normally I complain about using water for fuel. But here, since it's a boat, surrounded by water... not going to complain.

The lack of water is never my reason... it's thermodynamics...

Whenever people tell me you can use water as fuel I ask what the combustion product would be... I've never gotten an answer.

 

[Shock-On-T]

The lack of water is never my reason... it's thermodynamics...

Whenever people tell me you can use water as fuel I ask what the combustion product would be... I've never gotten an answer.

I always tell people that water is the ash of hydrogen.
That usually settles things down.

 

[Shock-On-T]

Slightly off topic, but it's amusing to think this thread started in 2008, back when there was some uncertainty about battery vs hydrogen.

 

[jkn]

Oxygen from water went to Al. Fuel cell needs oxygen. Too difficult under water. For torpedoes batteries win.

 

[winfield100]

Note the reaction is highly exothermic.

would not that wasted heat be similar to the wasted heat energy of an ICE vehicle, and you have a very toxic pile of "goo" you have to dispose of/neutralize at a nasty alkaline pH?
we found (tho we never did danger experiements with explosives like this) it was very difficult to control the exothermy without a big bucket of cool water or we got way too much hydrogen way too fast and the reaction vessel (small mouth tin can that could fit a balloon) vomited a large amount of witches brew we had to clean up in the mid 1960's, if we did this, but WE didn't

 

[JeffK]

would not that wasted heat be similar to the wasted heat energy of an ICE vehicle

Exactly and we know how inefficient those are, combine that with the general efficiencies of the process to get the nanoparticles, the transportation, the loss from the fuel cell, the loss from the inverter, etc, etc, etc and we'll find ourselves right back where we started.

One study said it'd be about a cost equivalence to $3/gallon. At a 21mpg comparison a pure electric BEV is closer to $0.60-$0.70 per gallon.

 

[transpondster]

Really? Here's it working in 2013:

It's not a catalyst, you can't simply add more water and have the reation continue indefinitely. You'd have to carry both aluminum, the other metal material AND water. The cost of all this is more than the current price of gasoline.

A few approaches use gallium as part of the alloy... imagine accidently getting that on an exposed surface of your aluminum body panels.

I just watched it yesterday, but today it's removed, Guess it's hard to sell "new" breakthrough when there is video form 2013...

 

[JeffK]

I just watched it yesterday, but today it's removed, Guess it's hard to sell "new" breakthrough when there is video form 2013...

Conspiracy?
this might work:

Looks like the exact same video uploaded two years later.

 

[brucet999]

Highly exothermic reaction takes stealth advantage of an EV away.

??? "Splain, please

 

[jkn]

??? "Splain, please

Exhaust from ICE gives nice target for heat seeking missiles. EV runs cooler. I don't know how much heat Al+H2O->AlO+H2 gives, but it could be significant. Also fuel cell produces waste heat.

 

[RubberToe]

Hyundai "pulls the plug" on Hydrogen, will focus on battery EV's:

Hyundai Ditches Hydrogen Fuel Cell Technology For Now, Pivots to Electric Vehicles

 

[S'toon]

I've read conflicting stories on that today.
Hyundai Pushing Ahead Fuel Cell Strategy, New SUV Slated For Production - Gas 2

 

[winfield100]

Exhaust from ICE gives nice target for heat seeking missiles. EV runs cooler. I don't know how much heat Al+H2O->AlO+H2 gives, but it could be significant. Also fuel cell produces waste heat.

Al + H2O + NaOH-> H2 + witches brew of toxic goo + lots of heat.

 

[Doug_G]

Slightly off topic, but it's amusing to think this thread started in 2008, back when there was some uncertainty about battery vs hydrogen.

Nah, it was obvious hydrogen wasn't going to happen back then. There were just more people with their heads in a cloud.

 

[kaufen]

This tends to imply a Tesla like semi would get about 335 miles from 5-600 kWh.

 

[dpeilow]

The 100D spent the night nervously contemplating which fuel is smarter (hoping the smokers in the car park didn't get any closer) - then set course for Edinburgh!

 

[dpeilow]

I looked a bit more into those cylinders at the back of the site. 120 in total and I recon they are K sized ones, as per here High Purity Hydrogen Cylinder | BOC Shop

The data sheet says each contains 7.21 m^3 of hydrogen. I presume that means at STP, which would therefore weigh 648 grammes.

The data sheet also says each cylinder has 65 kg gross weight. Therefore the ratio of total weight to contained gas is virtually 100:1 (this does not account for the residual gas that will not come out when depleted, so in reality is a bit worse).

120 cylinders contain 77.76 kg of gas, which is enough to fill 15 cars. They are possibly trucking this in from Rotterdam.


Furthermore, each cyclinder costs £39.17 exc delivery from BOC. It needs 8 to fill a car with a 5kg tank = £313.36 total!