Carbon; the Great Hydrogen Tamer!

The more I look at Carbon, the more amazed I am at its versatility and utility. We know carbon in many of its forms from the exotic and mesmerizing diamond, to its simple plastic, and finally to its many forms of fuel we call hydrocarbons.

The technical reason for Carbon's utility is that it has 4 locations for bonding to other elements, including itself. Hydrocarbons come in 2 forms, Aromatic and Alkane. Aromatic is more dense form of hydrocarbon since its center is formed of a carbon ring. Pretty nifty, but for our purposes it tends to disqualify itself as a fuel, while making a great glue and is excellent at keeping moths away from your clothes ... among other things.

Alkanes:
The most simplistic form of hydrocarbon is methane with its single Carbon atom saturated with four hydrogen. Light-weight, powerful, and emits the least amount of Carbon when burned than any of the other hydrocarbons. Next is the little-mentioned Ethane with 2 Carbons and 6 hydrogen, followed by Propane and Butane, each adding another Carbon and 2 hydrogen.

Since I cannot draw the organization of the molecule here, I'll simply post a link for a visual aid.

As one ponders the larger of the molecules, it becomes easier to comprehend that the larger the molecule, the more Carbon there is in the ratio. Methane has a 4:1 hydrogen to Carbon ratio, and Butane 10:4, or simplified 5:2. It is also easy to notice that these are all gasses at room temperature, but what is not as easy to spot is that the lighter-weight of the gaseous hydrocarbon are also the least dense. Chilling or compressing the gas becomes necessary for transportation ... or the gas can be piped. Either of these solutions are costly, but for the energy yield they are costs that can be overcome.

So where does gasoline fit in? Basically where the molecules become Carbon-laden enough to become liquid without compressing or chilling, that is above butane. The molecules of the hydrocarbon mixture in gasoline contain 5 to 10 Carbon. Then kerosene is in the 10 to 16 Carbon range. Diesel fuel and fuel oils are in this range as well, but contain solid hydrocarbon molecules with 17 Carbons on up.

Getting back to gasoline. Since the Carbon to Hydrogen ratio is becoming more equal, the hydrogen aspects of these molecules becomes less apparent, therefore easier to handle. After refining, there is no extra manipulation needed to use it ... other than to make a little effort to keep it from evaporating or leaking. These are less costly devices than pressurized or cooled tanks, or even piping over distances.

Products on the market today containing solid hydrocarbons with these heavy chains include petroleum jelly, paraffin wax, asphalt, detergents, cosmetics, plastics and more.

So if Carbon is such a great tamer of hydrogen, why have hydrocarbons recently become an ecological by-word? I think we all know the short answer to that, but I hope you will continue to follow my blog as I discuss this ... in my next post.

Thanks for taking the time to visit Hydrobooster!

Automotive Fuel Cell Evaluation

Be warned, the next sentence may cause your eyes to glaze over ... but the rest of the post will be better, I promise.

Yesterday was the first day of a week-long meeting entitled; "2009 DOE HYDROGEN PROGRAM and VEHICLE TECHNOLOGIES PROGRAM ANNUAL MERIT REVIEW and PEER EVALUATION MEETING" Odd as this may sound, the meeting name is actually a longer than the URL, believe it or not.

Ok, you're probably asking the same thing I did ... what does it mean? If the reader will indulge me for a moment, perhaps I can shed some light. The DOE, NREL (National Renewable Energy Lab) and the auto industry are validating automotive fuel cell technology including its infrastructure.

The most understandable information I could find on this was on the NREL's website where one may fine road-maps and milestones for the hydrogen economy, along with how the 7-year long project is performing to date.

As I'm sure most of us are aware that battery range on commuter cars is rather short when compared with even the smallest gasoline vehicle. Yet what the fuel cell vehicle has already accomplished is attained a practical 200 mile range ... not yet to the project's goal of over 300 miles, but showing a lot of promise!

So what are the goals of the Fuel Cell Learning Demonstration in which the DOE, Ford, Chrystler, GM, Hyundai-Kia and BP, Shell, and Chevron have all thrown a fair amount of money into? By 2015 they want to achieve:

1. Fuel Cell (FC) Stack Durability of 5,000 hours
2. Vehicle Range of 300 miles or more
3. Hydrogen Cost at Station of $2-3$ gge (Gallon of Gasoline Equivalent).
4. Consistent refueling times of 3 minutes (~5 kg H2 per tank).

This year, 2009, as it turns out, is a major milestone for this project, but first I must beg your indulgence of a quick digression just in case there are readers with little to no exposure to what a fuel cell vehicle is.

Think of an electricly propelled vehicle with a unique battery (sort of) that uses Hydrogen to generate electricity, and emits water as a byproduct and that would be the general idea.

So what is our major milepost here in 2009 and just how close are we to it?

Milepost criterion:

1. FC stack durability of 2000 hours.
2. 250+ miles of range.
3. $3 H2 cost at station.
4. 5 minute fill.
   

Accomplishments:

1. FC stack durability of 2000 hours theoretical and (nearly a reality as some of the early vehicles are approaching this mark without repair).
2. 250+ mile range met on dynomometer and sticker, but actual driving practices and fear of running out of fuel have reduced the practical range to 80% of dyno range. Practical range, therefore, is between 150 and 215 miles.
   
3. $3 H2 cost? I couldn't seem to find this. I guess the old addage ... 'if you have to ask you can't afford it' applies here. What I could discover is that H2 Fueling stations are rare even in the test areas, and efficiencies of natural gas steam reforming and electrolysis methods are still lower than benchmarks, but both are climbing. Efficiency translates to cost, therefore I can only assume that it's still more costly than the equivalent in gasoline.
4. Fill times have come down, but currently only 25% of fills are meeting goal of 1 kg per minute.

Final analysis ... even before this meeting concludes, the US Government has weighed in on the issue. While it still shows promise, results on the near-term are somewhat disappointing. The program hasn't been killed, but Stimulus funding has been re-focused as of May 7th. Secretary Chu announced that two forms of energy assistance will be cut while many forms of subsidies toward energy are being boosted; Deep Water Drilling, and Hydrogen Fuel Cell Vehicles.

To quote my favorite muppet from Star Wars: "Disappoint this is, and unfortunate." Yet as fiscally liberal as the Federal Government has shown itself to be, I suppose it has to show constraint somewhere. From an immediate-gains standpoint, it does make sense. I just hope it isn't the death-knell to another future US industry; allowing Europe to take the edge in yet another alternative energy market.

Book Review: Hydrogen -- Hot Stuff :: Cool Science

I just finished reading this fascinating book by Rex A Ewing. I feel I must warn you, though, if you're looking for a dry and boring text book, you should look somewhere else. In Hydrogen -- Hot Stuff :: Cool Science, Mr. Ewing has fused together the adventure novel and science in a way that is both delightfully funny and intruigingly factual.

Included are 18 chapters and a prolog and epilog with the following energy technologies discussed:

Hydrogen as fuel used the following ways:

• Combustion
• Fuel Cell
• Fusion

Nuclear Fission

Wind

Solar

The following Biomass fuels:

• Biodiesel
• Ethanol
• Methanol

Coal Gasification

Pyrolysis

Electricity

While discussing all of these energy techs, the following science basics are discussed (among others):

• Molecular bonds
• Why water is different than other molecules of its size and weight
• Fusion
• Fission
• Global Warming (the fact and the hype revealed)
• Gasification
• Fuel Stock Relative Energy
• Photosynthisis

Graphs I found interesting and informative detailed CO2 levels with respect to temperature and another one where CO2 levels were compared with human population growth. And most intriguing of all was the one that showed estimated cost of making hydrogen comparing several different methods.

What I found refreshing about the book was Rex's honest appraisal of hydrogen's current shortfalls as well as touting its strengths. Some of the current problems ranged from small-scale storage as in fuel tanks on a vehicle to generation of H2 to current fuel cell costs and failure modes.

As I was analysing the considerable information, I realized, however, that I would have liked to have seen more information about battery technology as well as methods of Carbon sequestering, but I suppose when the book's purpose is to discuss the up-coming Hydrogen Economy, those topics are better left to a different book.

Between each chapter, there was a section called 'Technistoff' which frequently gave hyperlinks to news articles, research papers, or product web pages in order to show how viable and documented the information actually is.

So why did I choose to read this book? Two reasons: I was looking for information on how fuel cell works, and also looking for more information toward improving my hydrogen electrolysis project as I've discussed in previous posts.

What I read therein was awesome to the first end, but troubling to the second end. What I mean is this: Rex dedicated an entire chapter to describing the workings of a feul cell, but when he spoke about using hydrogen in an Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) his recommendation was to re-engineer the ICE due to the complications that come with a more simplistic conversion. And he didn't even discuss using on-board hydrogen generation method to supplement gasoline.

Guess that just goes to show that he didn't consult me before he wrote his book.... which is probably a good thing.

He did, however, give a book recommendation for engine conversion: Fuel from Water: Energy Independence with Hydrogen by Michael A. Peavey.

All-in-all I was quite pleased with this book. It will take me some time to work through all the diverse links it has pointed to as I continue seeking the truth behind the Alternate Energy Hype.

Take care, one and all!