Metal Alloy Hydrogen Tank is 60% Lighter Than a Battery
A Dutch researcher has developed a magnesium, titanium and nickel alloy that has huge potential as a hydrogen storage tank for cars of the future. On a relative basis, the weight of a storage tank made from this alloy would be 60% lighter than a lithium ion battery that could take a car the same distance.
One of the major stumbling blocks of hydrogen cars (fuel cell or otherwise) involves the storage of hydrogen on board. Hydrogen is very combustible and poses an extreme fire/explosion danger, especially when stored as a highly compressed gas.
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Some researchers suggest that the best method to use hydrogen in a car is avoid the storage of it altogether and make it on-demand through another chemical reaction. One of the most promising of these methods comes from Jerry Woodall, a Purdue University professor who has been reacting an aluminum-gallium alloy with water to release hydrogen instantaneously.
But Dutch researcher Robin Gremaud has found that storing the hydrogen in his metal alloy “nano-sponge” can drastically reduce the danger of explosion. The metal alloy can absorb the hydrogen and render it relatively inert until needed. According to Gremaud’s press release, however, the “drawback of this approach is that it makes the hydrogen ‘tanks’ somewhat cumbersome.”
Hydrogen cars are one of those future technologies that perpetually seem to be “on the horizon.” Although the research is in a constant chug — bringing it a bit closer with every year — the reality of a “hydrogen economy” seems as far away today as it did when I was in 8th grade and read an article in Popular Mechanics that claimed it was a decade away — that was 20 years ago.
So, although research like this is always incredibly interesting, there’s a part of my brain that writes it off as a pipe-dream. The idea of a hydrogen economy makes for a great story, but the reality of getting there may be too much for us to handle, at least in the short term. What do you think?
Image Credit: Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research
Source: Eurekalert
How do we fuel a Hydrogen powered car at home? That is the one draw back. It still centralizes fueling, leaving us at the mercy of….whoever. In Arizona we would take Natural Gas in a heart beat since our homes are all piped.
It’s significant because it could meet the DOE 2010 goals to create materials capable of holding 6% of their weight in hydrogen for hydrogen storage.
You fuel your Honda Calrity (if you happen to be Jamie Lee Curtis) from your Honda Home Energy Station (if you happen to live in Latham, NY near Plug Power) which produces 1 kW of power for your home, heat for your hot water needs, and hydrogen for your fuel cell vehicle all from your current natural gas connection (if you happen to live in Arizona). There are also commercial demonstration hydrogen fueling stations in California that use solar cell driven electrolysis to make hydrogen for fuel cell and H2 ICE buses. Rest assured, cost is still the biggest problem.
If the big three were not OPEC controlled, and if Exxon et. al., were not OPEC controlled, if the boards of these and other “American” companies were free to do so without offending major shareholders like the Saudis . . . America could produce and use fast light Euro-style diesels instead of gas engines. Euro-diesels are up to 40% more efficient than gas engines and DO NOT require additives or cracking to burn fuel, two major areas of savings for American customers and a FORTY PERCENT REDUCTION in fuel costs across the board. Modern well tuned diesels with scrubbers do not stink and are safer and longer lasting than gasoline engines - a fact! Instead, we stick our heads up our nether-parts and pray for an “Obama Miracle” a miracle where we don’t have to change, and everything will be alright! It Ain’t gonna happen that way America! The humongous social and economical paradigm shifts driven by the (GRD) great republican depression are just starting to be felt by the unemployed or otherwise disenfranchised in America! Before the GRD is done with us, even the “American Dream” will have undergone changes we can’t even imagine now! All of this is in the face of China’s unending, self-regenerating, 55 cent and hour, 14 hour a day, 7 day a week army of female workers, trained already by GM to build Buick Lesabre’s and ready to fill the docks at Shanghai with Eco-Box cars to be sold on the American market for $6000.00 a copy at a Walmart near you! Safe H2 tanks are to be applauded, but too little, too late, to say the least! The Hydrogen economy will remain, lost in the nether-realms with cold fusion, fission and stellar death rays, expensive fiction at best, breeders of false hopes at worst.