eHydrogen Solutions Announces New Self-contained Hydrogen Cell Requiring No Outside Power Source

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://www.ehydrogensolutions.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=section&layout=blog&id=3&Itemid=5

3.30.10 New Self-Contained Hydrogen Cell Requires No Outside Power Source

eHydrogen Solutions Announces New Self-contained Hydrogen Cell Requiring No Outside Power Source

RENO, NV - March 30, 2010-- (OTCPK: EHYD) eHydrogen Solutions, Inc. (eHS), announced an important addition to its core On Demand Hydrogen Production capabilities with the launch of the H2-Reactor Development Project. The H2-Reactor is a self contained On Demand Hydrogen Production (ODHP) system utilizing only water and reactive metal alloys including aluminium or magnesium. No outside power source is required and the system generates no emissions. The resultant oxides and alloys are economically replenished, sustainable, and recyclable.

The reactive metals cause water molecules to release hydrogen and oxygen, which immediately reacts with aluminum to produce aluminum oxide (alumina) which can be recycled back into aluminum. Recycling aluminum from nearly pure alumina is less expensive than mining the aluminum-containing ore bauxite, thereby creating a reusable, sustainable, and zero-emission power source.

By recycling aluminum oxide back to aluminum, the cost of producing energy both as hydrogen and heat will continually to decrease, and is expected to be well below 10 cents per kilowatt hour.

The Company views the H2-Reactor addition an essential addition to its overall design vision for its core ODHP technologies, particularly for high volume real-time hydrogen production environments such as Industrial Heating and Power Generation.

The Company recently announced the integration of its H-Solaris technology development, utilizing solar energy to as the main power source for real-time hydrogen creation direct from water, with its expanding US Home Heating Joint Development Project. This addition of H2-Reator capabilities not only add further ODHP options for the expanding residential Combined Heating and Power market; but opens up the expansive Industrial Heating and Power Generation Market.

The H-Solaris and H2-Reactor development projects, together with the Company’s advanced electrolysis technologies, when integrated into a fuel cell, hydrogen powered generator and/or advanced battery storage, enable sufficient hydrogen production to power a wide variety of residential, commercial and industrial applications. This has important potential implications, since hydrogen can be economically produced on-site and does not need to be transported.

The Company believes Distributed Power Generation, particularly Combined Heating and Power, to be an emerging growth sector promising to become a significant and vital energy option primed for strong sales growth.

The Company intends to develop and license a variety of technologies and power systems founded on its core holdings will make further announcements on the progress of each of these new initiatives and the as the various core technologies are integrated into its development and partnership programs.

...

OK, so, given X amount of energy invested to recycle aluminum oxide to aluminum, Y amount of energy is recovered as hydrogen & heat, where X > Y...

[drm604]

1. "No Outside Power Source"

I could be charitable and call that disingenuous or I could simply call it what it is, a lie. (I'm not talking about OKIsItJustMe, he made it clear that he understands this, I'm talking about the press release.)

If it takes energy to replenish the metal alloys then it requires an outside energy source. Hell, when my car has a full tank it requires no outside energy source... at least until the tank is empty.

[zeemike]

3. I think the point is.

That this coupled with solar could make a grid free home....the outside power would be the sun.

[drm604]

4. As I read it

it's saying that the alloys have to periodically be replenished and recycled but that it otherwise requires no outside energy source. So, unless the home has some sort of solar powered alloy reprocessing facility I don't see how your idea could work.

[OKIsItJustMe]

6. "In this process, aluminium functions as a compact hydrogen storage material ..."

http://www.ehydrogensolutions.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2&Itemid=3&limitstart=4

...

The initial reaction (1) consumes sodium hydroxide and produces both hydrogen gas and an aluminate byproduct. Upon reaching its saturation limit, the aluminate compound decomposes (2) into sodium hydroxide and a crystalline precipitate of aluminum hydroxide. This process is similar to the reactions inside an aluminium battery.

   1. Al + 3 H2O + NaOH → NaAl(OH)4 + 1.5 H2
   2. NaAl(OH)4 → NaOH + Al(OH)3

Overall:

Al + 3 H2O → Al(OH)3 + 1.5 H2

In this process, aluminium functions as a compact hydrogen storage material because 1 kg of aluminum can produce up to 0.111 kg of hydrogen (or 11.1%) from water. When employed in a fuel cell, that hydrogen can also produce electricity, recovering half of the water previously consumed. The U.S. Department of Energy has outlined its goals for a compact hydrogen storage device and researchers are trying many approaches, such as by using a combination of aluminum and NaBH4, to achieve these goals.

Since the oxidation of aluminum is exothermic, these reactions can operate under mild temperatures and pressures, providing a stable and compact source of hydrogen. This chemical reduction process is specially suitable for back-up, remote or marine applications. While the passivation of aluminum would normally slow this reaction considerably, its negative effects can be minimized by changing several experimental parameters such as temperature, alkali concentration, physical form of the aluminum, and solution composition.

...

[eppur_se_muova]

9. So skip the H2, and use the Al directly in a fuel cell. Duh.

Then you have to keep replacing the aluminum to keep the fuel cell running -- i.e. you're "refueling" the cell with solid Al, as oxide/hydroxide is removed. As more and more Al is diverted to fuel cell use, instead of being recycled by being melted down, the cost of aluminum will inevitably rise. More than 90% of Al is recycled by melting down scrap; this takes so much less energy than recovering Al from its oxide that it makes Al cheap enough to use in common applications. If all the Al has to be recovered from the oxide, the price of Al will go up about 10-fold.

This isn't the first time, or even the tenth, that someone's "discovered" you can get H2 out of aluminum. Whether these people realize that it can't possibly work economically, or whether they're just ignorant, doesn't much matter. A few investors will be separated from their cash, and the idea will be put back in its crypt, inevitably only to awake and walk the earth again at a later date.

ETA: links to some of those "other" discoveries ...
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=110573&mesg_id=110573

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=96944&mesg_id=96944

One MUST contrast this H2-as-intermediate method vs the use of Al directly in a battery ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium_battery

This paints a positive outlook for the engineering potential, although the affordability remains questionable: the energy generated by combustion of 1 litre (0.22 imp gal; 0.26 US gal) of gasoline is about 9.7 kilowatt-hours (35 MJ) from batteries. When considering the relative energy-to-mechanical conversion efficiencies of gasoline engines versus electric motors, 1 liter of gasoline is equivalent to 2.7 kilowatt-hours (9.7 MJ) of electricity<2>. The implication is that Al/air batteries have a break-even cost versus gasoline of around US$$ 11 for 1 litre (0.22 imp gal; 0.26 US gal).

[OKIsItJustMe]

5. I believe that's a different technology ("H2-Reactor" -vs- "H-Solaris")

...

The Company views the H2-Reactor addition an essential addition to its overall design vision for its core ODHP technologies, particularly for high volume real-time hydrogen production environments such as Industrial Heating and Power Generation.

The Company recently announced the integration of its H-Solaris technology development, utilizing solar energy to as the main power source for real-time hydrogen creation direct from water, with its expanding US Home Heating Joint Development Project. This addition of H2-Reator capabilities not only add further ODHP options for the expanding residential Combined Heating and Power market; but opens up the expansive Industrial Heating and Power Generation Market.

...

It seems to be a rather poorly written press release.

[NNadir]

2. So much for the first law of thermodynamics.

Aluminum/magnesium/borohydride...blah...blah...blah talk is almost a old as "solar will save us" talk, and it's not like "solar will save us" talk was new 30 years ago in 1980.

[Terry in Austin]

7. And what exactly WILL save us, NNadir?

Hmmm?

:evilgrin:

[NNadir]

8. The best tested and world's largest form of climate change gas free energy.

It functions on a 30 exajoule/year scale of energy, is easily scalable, and outstrips all other forms of climate change gas free energy combined.

There is only one form of energy that qualifies, and it is being studied with renewed vigor by many hundreds of thousands of people with a very sophisticated knowledge of science, and maligned by people who, um, don't know much science and thus get their educations on Greenpeace blogs.

Because of it's history, extending over half a century, it's well understood already, and has functioned in a huge number of nations without causing a single loss of life.

It's not perfect, of course, but it doesn't have to be perfect to be vastly superior to everything else, which, happily it is.

Maybe you've heard of it.

But then again maybe you haven't. It's not like we know one another, and far be it from me to make suppositions about you.

Maybe you don't live in a forward looking nation like um, say, India, and are guided by primitive dogma and are living in the modern day equivalent of post-Galilean Italy. That's was a swell place and a swell time, post galilean Italy. Because of mysticism and wishful thinking and denial, the Italian peninsula surrendered it's preeminence in science, never to recover it really, ever. When you dispense with observation, and substitute dogma for it, the result is predictable.

As they say, "deja vu all over again."

As for me, mostly I read scientific papers written in India when I think of energy issues. Great stuff going on there, ground-breaking really.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6TFX-4TDD1K4-Y&_user=1082852&_coverDate=11%2F30%2F2008&_alid=1276843333&_rdoc=2&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_cdi=5238&_sort=r&_docanchor=&view=c&_ct=8&_acct=C000051401&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=1082852&md5=7600504bbd65e732215e3b3862ab2e58">Not the sort of thing one can see on the Greenpeace website, fer shuuuure: Why India rocks.