by Gene Howington, Guest Blogger
Science and society are common topics of discussion here. As frequently noted on this blog, a great number of our foriegn policy and domestic economic headaches could be made to go away if we were not dependent on foreign oil or oil at all. Alternatives have been discussed, but one of the most promising technologies – hydrogen – has time and again run into the issue of how to manufacture carbon-free or clean hydrogen. A new technology developed by doctoral student Erik Koepf working out of the University of Delaware and currently being tested in Switzerland shows promise of delivering hydrogen production free from carbon dioxide and other undesirable emissions.
Traditional methods of manufacturing hydrogen involve fractionating natural gas. This process negates any benefit of burning the hydrogen because the volume of carbon dioxide released in the manufacturing process is comparably as polluting as burning traditional fossil fuels. Koepf’s process essentially involves super heating zinc oxide via solar concentration in a cylinder filled with layers of ceramic and ultra-high temperature insulation materials. Zinc oxide is a benign substance similar to baking soda. Once a high temperature is achieved – in the test, a temperature of 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit or approximately 1/3 the temperature of the surface of the sun will be used – a gravity fed system is used to introduce zinc oxide to the cylinder. This causes a chemical reaction that converts the zinc oxide into a pure zinc vapor. This vapor is catalyzed with water during the next step producing hydrogen and zinc oxide. Because one of the byproducts of the process is the primary catalyst for the process and possibly reusable, this has the theoretical benefit of being a self-sustaining process.
All of Koepf’s work up to this point has been on the design itself, building the prototype and building and testing the control systems of the prototype. April 5 marked the start date for six weeks of testing the reactor at temperature at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich. These tests will not only measure the reliability of the reactor mechanism(s) at temperature but measure the amount of hydrogen produced and help determine if the production rate merits taking the reactor design beyond the prototype stage and into an industrial scale test. Although Koepf’s work has been primarily funded by the Federal Transit Administration, he is currently working to patent his design through the University of Delaware’s Office of Economic Innovation and Partnerships. If this works, Erik Koepf could be a name that goes down in the history of science as someone who fundamentally influenced the world and likely for the better.
The question then becomes, if this works, how do we best proceed? Manufacturing facilities, safe delivery channels and safe storage facilities will need to be developed. Transportation and power companies will need to be incentivized to adopt hydrogen. Key to all is the manufacturing process.
Given that the oil industry directly used their improper influence over the Bush Administration to both force an invasion of Iraq – a country that did not attack us on 9/11 – and evade attacking Saudi Arabia – the country that did man and fund the 9/11 attacks but were and are business partners in the oil industry with the Bush family – if this technology does play out in providing a sustainable clean form of alternative energy, should we as a nation allow the oil industry to participate in the manufacturing and distribution of hydrogen given the heinous nature of their past bad acts? Should we nationalize hydrogen production and distribution? Should be create new monopolies discrete from the petroleum industry? Should we simply bar those bad actors from participating by force of law?
Once we overcome the supply issues for carbon-free energy, there is no reason we should allow the same corporate criminals currently running the oil industry to take over the (potentially) burgeoning hydrogen industry. They are known bad actors with a propensity to pursue profit over all other considerations including peace, human health, safety and welfare and the environment. We have options and at this early stage it is a pertinent and prudent time to consider those options if (and when) we can move forward with the first viable form of alternative energy. Which options should we consider? What do you think the best political and economic path to energy independence is once the technical barriers are breached?
What do you think?
Source(s): Geek.com, University of Delaware UD Daily, Phys.org
~ Submitted by Gene Howington, Guest Blogger
Gene H:
I stand corrected. thank you.
But why not just use photovoltaic cells?
Gene
my question about koeph’s method of separating hydrogen from water is (and no the article doesn’t address this) does the reactor require purified water or can water tainted with salts, heavy metals, or industrial contaminants be used.
Bron,
“Heating something to 3,000 degrees F for a sustained amount of time must take a large amount of energy. That kind of energy requirement sort of negates the idea. Like coal powered electric cars.”
You should really read and understand before you comment. The heating in this process is via concentrated solar. It’s a large amount of energy, but it’s free and non-polluting Far from negating the idea, this process exemplifies the idea.
Research demonstrates that activated carbon could store hydrogen at room temperature
Dredd, while I’m not opposed to methanol, the problems you point to with hydrogen are engineering problems, some of which are being addressed now and will be better addressed as materials technology evolves. This is a fine example of what I was just telling Tony about attractiveness of various solutions for various applications. Methanol fuel cells make more sense for automotive applications, but in industrial applications, the benefit of higher energy density and efficiency in hydrogen makes more sense for centralized generation plants. Different tools for different jobs.
A lot of folks, including the current government, put great stock in nuclear energy for some morbid reason … and I do mean morbid:
(Washington Blog). Yet the government just approved two new Fukushima styled power plants in Georgia.
I am wondering if my 10th grade science teacher, Mr. Phillips, isnt rich now. He took a beaker of water, put a small charge of electricity into the water and then lit the gas which was released with a match and created a small hydrogen explosion.
No fancy reactors needed just a little bit of current and some collection tanks.
Heating something to 3,000 degrees F for a sustained amount of time must take a large amount of energy. That kind of energy requirement sort of negates the idea. Like coal powered electric cars.
A quick google search produces a large amount of work on producing hydrogen which seem much easier and more efficient than this method.
Complexity is fine for the laboratory but it has to be simplified for production efficiencies, in other words; you need to be able to make a buck out of the process.
From Wiki (RE methanol):
“Advantages over hydrogen
Methanol economy advantages compared to a hydrogen economy:
*Efficient energy storage by volume, as compared with compressed hydrogen. And when hydrogen pressure-confinement vessel is taken into account, an advantage in energy storage by weight can also be realized. The volumetric energy density of methanol is considerably higher than liquid hydrogen, in part because of the low density of liquid hydrogen of 71 grams/litre. Hence there is actually more hydrogen in a litre of methanol (99 grams/litre) than in a litre of liquid hydrogen, and methanol needs no cryogenic container maintained at a temperature of -253°C.
*A liquid hydrogen infrastructure would be prohibitively expensive. Methanol can use existing gasoline infrastructure with only limited modifications.
*Can be blended with gasoline (for example in M85, a mixture containing 85% methanol and 15% gasoline).
*User friendly. Hydrogen is volatile and requires high pressure or cryogenic system confinement.”
(Wikipedia).
“I disagree with Gene on the point that we need a whole suite of solutions. Unlike wind, or photovoltaic, or tidal power, or biofuels, 100% of the energy we need could easily be generated by thermal solar solutions alone, and cheap. (I am also a fan of geothermal solutions, for similar reasons: old tech updated for better efficiency, but I do understand why some are opposed, and it is true that solar thermal is obviously safer).”
I think you’re painting that with too broad a brush, Tony. Perhaps I should have been clearer, but I don’t think “need” is the word choice I’d have picked rather than “varied application and economic situations will necessitate”. Theoretically, I agree what thermal solar solutions should be able to produce 100% of our energy needs. The sun is a larger, more efficient fusion reactor then we’ll have the technology to build for the foreseeable future and possibly ever so why not use it? The reality is though that some circumstances will call for an optimal solution (either because of environment or economics) where some other option (like wind or tidal) is simply the more attractive answer. However, systems like this one, I see it as just another form of thermal solar to be honest. It’s a solar powered thermal chemical reaction that results in energy storage and the storage medium just happens to be hydrogen instead of a battery. I also think geothermal could and should play a huge role in cleaning up our generation of electricity.
@Idealist: There are plenty of ways to store energy. None of them are perfectly efficient, but some are over 80%. I am using the scientific/engineering definition of “efficient,” meaning one minus the round-trip percentage loss from input to storage back to usable electrical energy. So 80% efficiency means a net loss of 20% of the energy, usually to waste heat, vibration, noise or wear, for having stored it.
The same definition applies to all the aspects of generation. Reflector efficiency describes how much of the light is reflected, and how much is absorbed (for modern reflectors, reflectors are often 90%-99% efficient). The modern Stirling engine used in Spain is about 38% efficient (only 38% of the light energy impinging upon its heat collector actually becomes electricity), the generators that convert mechanical motion to electricity are 90%-95% efficient, etc.
There are a lot of ways to use heat, mechanics, or electricity to do work that can be recovered later. For one old school example, we can pump water from a low reservoir to a higher reservoir using wind energy, and drain the high reservoir to the low reservoir (through a turbine) to generate energy when the wind isn’t blowing. That can be about 90% efficient in each direction, for a net loss of about 20%. Solar energy can work the same to store energy for the night or overcast days. Solar energy can be used to melt sodium-potassium salt, that molten salt will maintain the heat in an insulated container for many days; and supposedly this is nearly 90% efficient also.
Even heating bulk iron is pretty efficient, if it is kept in a vacuum or insulated with heat shield ceramics (both are cheap and easy).
Other more modern methods are vacuum-enclosed heavy flywheels on gas bearings; they can be set spinning with near zero friction and the energy can be recovered with high efficiency. Remember the wind-up toys and clocks? They store energy by compressing a spring with a controllable release; and that concept also scales up to “frighteningly massive.”
Compressed air engines exist, but so do compressed air turbines for generating electricity. I am not sure about compressing air, but the engines that use it can be over 95% efficient.
I disagree with Gene on the point that we need a whole suite of solutions. Unlike wind, or photovoltaic, or tidal power, or biofuels, 100% of the energy we need could easily be generated by thermal solar solutions alone, and cheap. (I am also a fan of geothermal solutions, for similar reasons: old tech updated for better efficiency, but I do understand why some are opposed, and it is true that solar thermal is obviously safer).
Any kid that has ever started a fire with a two-inch magnifying glass gets it, that simple 250:1 concentration ratio is HOT, and hot means energy. Imagine a magnifying glass that is 25 feet wide and focusing 23,000 times as much light: We can do that with parabolic dish reflectors that can, in essence, be stamped out about as cheap as aluminum cans.
In the size of a two-car garage (500 sf), about 45,000 watts are available in summer (for most of the USA), in six hours that is about 270 kWh per day, that is five to ten times what the average house uses in a day, for a fraction of the area occupied by the house. Between that, flat business building rooftops, and open non-arable land, and the numerous cheap and ready low-tech storage options available to us, it is hard for me to understand why people are still looking for high tech solutions.
We do not need a magic bullet or super battery. We’ve got iron, steel, glass, and aluminum, the most abundant metal on Earth. They are all cheap and plentiful and we will never, ever run out.
Solar thermal concentration can cohabit with wind power, by the way, and can be used for hydrogen production as a means of storage and transport, however the hydrogen may be produced.
Here is another metric: In the USA, with 313M people (all ages), the average non-water area per person is 314,000 square feet. If we used 1% of that area for solar thermal production with the same metrics as Spain’s operation, we would generate 433kWh per DAY per person. In 2009, we were using 225kWh per day in ALL forms of energy (including coal, fossil fuels, gasoline) per person, per day, about half what we could generate with just solar thermal, on just rooftops and the worst 0.5% of sunny land we can find.
Bob K
Adding heat will cause the breakdown of some compounds into two elements, but gaseous zinc and gaseous O or O2 are not in any obvious way channeled from each other. They are in intimate contact the whole time. In electrolysis the electrodes attract their respective ions, thus separating hydrogen from oxygen. Will take a look later.
Thanks
Gene,
Don’t be so harsh on those energy corporations. Remember, they are people too! 🙂
Bob K.,
You’re welcome and thank you for the presentation link. Very informative.
“Exciting tech news, however the idea of nationalizing, barring, or not allowing petrol companies to invest in the new tech is highly irrational.”
While I agree this is an area where competition would better serve the development and dispersal of the technology, there is nothing at all irrational about barring criminals and other proven bad faith actors from a process. That’s called responsible and/or just, but it isn’t irrational. We as a society don’t owe the petroleum industry anything but contempt and possibly some prison time for their behavior up to this point.
Thanks, Gene, great news!
Erik Koepf says oxygen from the reaction is vented off.
He explains all of this in great detail in this half-hour presentation:
I think the man knows what he’s talking about.
GeneH.
thanks for going on the tangent with us techies.
you’re right Blouise
It is possible he could do a Tim Berners-Lee and donate it?
Would that be better or would the biggies quickly get an oligopoly established, so that his control is necessary. And how long are those patents? Aren’t all gov stuff off-patent? And the industry size pilot will cost some moolah. Gas cars already exist, so no problem.
All this discussion on the science was extremely interesting but D.S. brought us back to some of the original questions posed by Gene.
When and if a new new fuel technology proves worthy across the board then I am with D.S when he suggests: “allows (allowing) public access to the design then there can be no monopoly and anyone is free to purchase and use the tech which would allow the benefits to be the most well dispersed and keep prices low.”
Exciting tech news, however the idea of nationalizing, barring, or not allowing petrol companies to invest in the new tech is highly irrational. Yes there are special interests that abuse power but it is not like it’s just oil companies abusing the environment, influencing govt etc. nationalization is a terrible idea, competition is what drives prices lower(not to mention a stable currency). I hope it works and he allows public access to the design then there can be no monopoly and anyone is free to purchase and use the tech which would allow the benefits to be the most well dispersed and keep prices low.
id707,
“That hydrogen-oxygen bond is not to be dissolved for nothing.
And these magic temperature thresholds sound so familiar from charlatan schemes—-like the latest cold fusion one.”
Those temperature thresholds (other than perhaps as a number) have nothing to do with a theoretical cold fusion process. The temperatures in this reactor are solar generated and required to create the chemical reaction necessary to convert the zinc oxide into vapor – a traditional thermal reaction.
“When the zinc oxide turns into zinc fumes where does the oxygen go? I mean how do you separate it from the hydrogen which is released when the pure zinc unites with the oxygen previously in the water form H2O?”
For the first question, in short, I don’t know. The sources were unclear as to whether the process produces excess oxygen as a byproduct or whether it is all recaptured in the zinc oxide after the hydrogen is catalyzed out of the H20. As to the second question, I’d assume a fractionating process based on specific gravity is used to separate and draw off the products/byproducts.