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04 Aug 2006 HEADLINE |
Fuel Cell Car Could Be Powered by Water
Source: Platinum Today
Class: SYNDICATED NEWS
SYNOPSIS: A boron and water-powered engine would not produce any harmful emissions. The only by-product of the process is boron oxide, which can simply be turned back into boron.
A project is underway that aims to create a fuel cell-powered car that
generates hydrogen fuel from a tank of water. Scientists from the
University of Minnesota and Israel's Weizmann Institute of Science are
pioneering the technique.
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10 comments so far...
09-Aug-2006
30403
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Using Boron as an energy carrier has been proposed several times before, however its full cycle efficiency is no better than hydrogen, and it must be transported back to the 'factory' for recharge. Handling of solids in granular or powered form is normally harder that liquid or gases. In its favor is that it is much easer to transport than hydrogen.
Posted by: Mike Swift
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09-Aug-2006
30448
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What about Zinc, or other more abundant metals? The Boron is only used as energy carrier and the Boron Oxide is 100% recyclable directly at the location where elemental Boron is purchased, or else, one must pay a deposit on the Boron without the Boron oxide returned. With 100% recycling, one will only pay for the energy cost and Boron remanufacturing cost, and NOT the cost of Boron each time. Likewise, the water used to make hydrogen can be recondensed in the exhaust and recyclable also, like a closed-cycle steam engine with water condenser to recollect the water in the steam exhaust. Tap water probably should not be used due to the unwanted mineral content. Distilled water would be expensive and energy-consuming for each refill, so, recycling the water by condensing the exhaust would be best. If a hydrogen-IC engine is used, means must be provided to seperate the contaminating engine oil in the exhaust. Overall, this could be a very good idea for the hydrogen economy.
Posted by: Roger Pham
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10-Aug-2006
30496
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I too can't believe there is a complaint about water, especially considering the amount of water needed to grow crops to produce bio-fuels. Plus, Bio-fuels still put out substantial CO2 and take all kinds of energy to harvest. Overall, the whole Bio-Fuel issue is a zero-sum game of not taking into account the whole chain. This type of system allows some reuse and recycling. While I also agree that liquids are easier to handle than solids/powders, that's only as we currently understand them. In fact, using solids/powders can allow more precise capturing and less overall waste. Containerization makes them much more effective simply because they are harder to deal with.
Posted by: Bill Clem
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10-Aug-2006
30507
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Hydrogen is not exactly safe to store on a vehicle so how do we overcome this problem. Does anyone know. I know of a company called United Nuclear that has made storing hydrogen very safe and with minimal modification to the motor (maybe not any) can run a gas engine car on hydrogen. Where do you get the hydrogen? United Nuclear also built a hydrogen generator to produce the hydrogen which can be stored on hydride tanks the company built that is very safe. What does that mean for us? A possible simple conversion to turn your car into a hybrid without the need of extra batteries. Instead of using your gas in your car you will be using the tanks of hydrogen and after they are depleted then your car's computer switches to gas mode and starts using gasoline. The only problem right now is United Nuclear is under attack from the Government so there is no immediate future on whether this technology will become available to the general public. It most likely will scrapped out just like the rest of the energy saving technology.
Posted by: Seth Sun
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10-Aug-2006
30531
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just go down to the beach and fill up
Posted by: mad matty
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04-Aug-2006
30116
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What a great idea! Let's build an engine that leads to a water shortage! I'm sure the Bush administration is all over this. I think we need to stick to developing BEVs.
Posted by: Virgil Niekamp
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04-Aug-2006
30143
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I agree completely... 45 liters of water per tank x 1 billion or so fuel tanks to fill... where is that supposed to come from?
Posted by: Josh Trutt
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05-Aug-2006
30204
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That's almost as much as water as a nuclear plant uses. Here in AZ we are in the 11th year of a drout and the Palo Verde nuclear plant uses 23 million gallons of water a day. They want to build 2 more.
-See below http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0317-02.htm
Published on Friday, March 17, 2006 by the New York Times
Nuclear Reactors Found to Be Leaking Radioactive Water
by Matthew L. Wald
The public's acceptance of new reactors depends in part on the performance of the old ones, and lately several of those have been discovered to be leaking radioactive water into the ground.
Posted by: jim stack
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06-Aug-2006
30220
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As much as I might like to agree with you gentlemen, all hydrogen systems I know of intend to use water as the source for hydrogen gas, and no one is talking about a water shortage there. If you will go back and read other articles in the press regarding the details for this project, the details suggest that the resulting water produced at the end of the process whether by combustion of hydrogen or chemical combination in the fuel cell can be readily recycled in each car using the Boron system. So this car will use little if any more water if properly constructed than any other method we use to free up hydrogen gas. In any case if there is a water shortage, as in drought, the water may have to come from a desalination plant.
There are a couple of places, however, where there is the potential for other real shortages in this system and that is the shortage that may be created by the need for large amounts of the pure element Boron in order to supply cars with Boron world wide, and for the Magnesium Oxide required for refinement of the Boron Oxide back to pure Boron. The Boron oxide created in this process has to be reduced back to the pure elemental Boron in some plant external to the car system. Aluminum, however, which is also being promoted in a similar process or system is, I believe, the fifth most abundant metal, and there is no shortage of this metal, at least as an unrefined oxide present on the earth. These kinds of sytems have already been considered by some of the large auto manufacturers and Chrysler's question has been: What do you do with the metal oxide at the end of the combustion or chemical process? If you recyle it back for metal refinement then your talking about the cost of an additional recycling infrastructure that currently does not exist with hydrocarbon fuels. On the positive side, however, you could probably both deliver and return the Boron or Aluminum in a sealed container by UPS.
Posted by: William Thompson
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07-Aug-2006
30316
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I can't believe you peeple are complaining about a water shortage when it's oil you're talking about replacing. When the price (which reflects scarcity) gets above the $50 bbl mark then you can worry. It's a lot easier to supply consumers with water, billions of gallons of which gets flushed down the toliet everyday than other raw materials.
Posted by: Tom lee
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