Anyone hear about this?

[Steve]

Hydrogen-based synthetic petrol developed in the UK.

The new tchnology promises a fuel that is compatible with existing vehicles, produce no greenhouse gases, expected to cost around $1,50 a gallon....

Expected to be widely available within the next three to five years!

Too good to be true?

 

[NutmegCT]

Steve - I can't tell from the description whether it's a fuel for hydrogen fuel cells, or can actually be used in current engines.

"It is hydrogen based fuel and produces no carbon emissions when burned. The technology is based on complex hydrides, and has been developed over a four year top secret program at the prestigious Rutherford Appleton Laboratory near Oxford. Early indications are that the fuel can be used in existing internal combustion engined vehicles without engine modification."

Can H2 run internal combustion engines without mods?

Does sound promising.

Tom

 

[DNK]

Will only run in pre 80 British Sports Cars.

 

[Banjo]

Interesting concept. Encapsulating hydrogen-based fuel in micron sized beads that move like liquid. That may be a good idea. We'll see. I believe you still run into the embrittlement issue of engine components when exposed to hydrogen though.

 

[GregW]

I'm curious how this can be zero carbon. They say they encapsulate the hydrogen in polystyrene, a petroleum product.

 

[DrEntropy]

LP gas powers "conventional" engines now. LH would too... but the onboard storage and transfer mechanism ain't there yet. Imagine "mom" trying to deal with pressure seals and big petcock valves. :smirk:

there'd be BIGGER jets needed for our cars.

<span style="font-style: italic">EDIT: Does it bother anyone else that most of the articles we get through the 'net seem to lack proofreading? I can hack my own English, as I;m not tryin' t' present scientifical articles... but when a good idea is written up the way <span style="font-weight: bold">my</span> posts usually read, I tend to lend 'em less credence. </span>

 

[NutmegCT]

Doc - I'm a dummy. As the blurb says the fuel can be used in an ICE without modification, I have to ask the experts here ...

Can an ICE just "run" on hydrogen now?

Note the company says it's in a form that "pours" like a liquid.

Tom

 

[DrEntropy]

We'd need a storage/delivery fuel system to handle the low temp & high pressure requirements but the short answer is: "yes".

With the suggested microbubble storage the need for most of that disappears. It's a GREAT idea, I hope it gets further development and not tons of money from a petro company just to be shelved.

 

[MikeP]

I'm assuming, since it doesn't say, that the byproduct is completely or mostly water. Guess the exhaust industry will be cheering this on, more frequent potential sales....

 

[ChrisS]

It looks like the idea is that the beads off gas hydrogen when heated, the hydrogen goes to the ICE or fuel cell and the beads get captured and recycled, where they can be processed again an "refilled" with hydrogen. Interesting concept but I don't know if the heating and bead capture system that would be needed constitutes "used in a internal combustion engine without modification". Kind of reminds me of a wood gas generator. No modification, just some extra equipment

.

 

[PC]

.... As the blurb says the fuel can be used in an ICE without modification, ......

Can an ICE just "run" on hydrogen now?...

I've seen experiments where a common, off-the street engine was converted to hydrogen use with little or no modification.

But for it to work <span style="font-style: italic">well</span>, I'm sure at least some modification would be appropriate, even if minor.

We'd need a storage/delivery fuel system to handle the low temp & high pressure requirements but ...

This <span style="font-style: italic">is </span>that system. It would operate at low pressure and ambient temperature.

The system is based on storing the hydrogen by absorbing it into metal hydride media.

It has long been known that metal hydrides can be used to store hydrogen at practical temperatures and pressures. The biggest practical drawback has been long delays required for refueling because hydrides absorb slowly. (Nobody wants to spend many hours to refuel.)

Back when they were first proposed (I'm not sure how long the idea's been floating around but I learned of it more than twenty years ago), it was thought that the the most practical approach would be some sort of canister swap program.

The process this company is proposing is to transfer beads of storage media between tanks rather than transferring tanks of fixed media.

I'm curious how this can be zero carbon. They say they encapsulate the hydrogen in polystyrene, a petroleum product.

The encapsulation media would not be consumed in combustion. It would be depleted of hydrogen and reused.

What they don't mention is that in near term there would still be a big carbon issue, just not due to combustion in the vehicles. The vast majority of commercially available hydrogen is produced by cracking hydrocarbon compounds (like natural gas). That carbon has to go somewhere.

To have zero net carbon emissions you'd have to produce the H2 by a non-carbon releasing process like solar or nuclear powered electrolysis.


pc.

 

[Steve]

Talking to my father about this the other day he pointed out that hydrogen exposes and exploits the slightest flaw in metal, so existing engines would have a shortened life span. They'd just become brittle and fail.

He mentioned something interesting about his time designing and testing engines. A guy came to him with a request to test and report on a setup that he had devised. This consisted of a Briggs and Stratton engine, 12hp I believe. This was connected to some tubes and devices, and a tank of water.

The engine devoted 8hp to provide enough electricity to separate the hydrogen from the oxygen, but was able to create its own fuel from that tank of water, and have 4hp remaining for use. Dad has no idea how it worked, or how it could have worked, but it did and his report to the creator of this contraption supported this.

He has no idea what happened after that but never heard of the project or the inventor after that.

 

[JPSmit]

He has no idea what happened after that but never heard of the project or the inventor after that.

Oh dang another conspiracy - just when I thought it was safe again, well, back to the safe room - where's that tin foil helmet

 

[70herald]

He has no idea what happened after that but never heard of the project or the inventor after that.

Probably because the inventor violated the second rule of thermodynamics -no free lunch, and is now in physics purgatory

Supposedly that device had more than 150% efficiency????

 

[Bayless]

Not true actually. The energy is there in the water which must be replaced regularly. He simply use 2/3 of his available hp to run the generator for the electricity that extracted the hydrogen. That does not leave much hp for practical use. That's probably why it never got off the ground.