Genetic Engineering - Technology Forum

Rising Star Joined: Dec 01, 2004 Posts: 19

Hydrogen is expensive to make and difficult to store. The most common way in making hydrogen is electrolyzing pure water.

A new startup is trying a new way to make hydrogen. The process uses sodium which industry shuns because it generates sparks and heat when mixed with water. Signa has devised a way to mix sodium with silica gel or crystalline silicon to create a powder that essentially strips electrons from the sodium molecules in advance and stores them. When water is introduced, the chemical reaction proceeds calmly. The powder generates hydrogen efficiently. More than 9 percent of a kilogram of the powder gets converted to hydrogen and little energy is lost through heat.

That could be a pretty idea for a fuel storage. NaCl doesn't have any energy. H2O doesn't have any energy (chemical). So no matter what the only energy you get out is going to have been put in in a more efficient form. However, if the powder is dense enough in energy that it could be used as the power source itself, and then just recycle the water.

Ofcourse the original power still come from (mostly) coal to make the electricity to make the split the salt, to break the water, to create the electricity, to power the car, to drive to the house that Jack built. The electrity to electricity conversion is the reason H2 will not be used in cars, unless you can dodge it with a *real* breakthrough, or have the H2 source beat the crap out of batteries it's not going to work. If you could get a pound of Cesium to power the car for a few months that might be worthwhile.

This said, I'll let you savvy people in on the future. The cars of the future are going to be several generation advanced hybrid cars. They will be flexible fuel hybrids that you can directly charge with your house's power. They will also be augmented with solar panels on the roof, which will also be used to charge the batteries. And if by some freak event H2 becomes available it will also have a fuel cell to charge up the batteries. They will work like a normal car, an electric car, and a solar car all in one, with reclaiming breaks and shocks ofcourse. In theory you could do your driving for the day without using a drop of your gas, but it's there if you need it. And if it's not there you could probably do a few miles per hour with just the solar.

http://news.com.com/Start-up+coins+new+way+to+harvest+hydrogen/2100-7337_3-5783870.html?tag=nefd.top

Expert Joined: Nov 17, 2004 Posts: 158 Location: Egypt

There was never an intention to be economic by using hydrogen. Certainly the oxidation of hydrogen as a power source is much more expensive than fossil fuel but it is "Green" clean because water is the result rather than Carbon Dioxide and Carbon Monoxide. All the research done on hydrogen fuel-cells is seeking a clean source of power for transportation, but the truly best is using electric-roads and electric cars in Utopia. Power generation can be centralised using earth's core heat of its magma.
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