HyperSolar Discovers Method to Make Renewable Natural Gas Using Solar Power (+water, carbon dioxide)

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://www.hypersolar.com/news_detail.php?id=17

HyperSolar Discovers Method to Make Renewable Natural Gas Using Solar Power

Company’s breakthrough technology uses sunlight, water and carbon dioxide to produce, clean, renewable natural gas

SANTA BARBARA, CA – November 15, 2011 –HyperSolar, Inc. (OTCBB:HYSR), the developer of a breakthrough technology to make renewable natural gas using solar power, today announced that it has filed a patent application for the production of renewable natural gas using sunlight, water and carbon dioxide. This renewable natural gas is a clean, carbon neutral methane gas that can be used as a direct replacement for traditional natural gas to power the world, without drilling or fracking, while mitigating CO₂ emissions.

“The sun is our greatest source of energy and a method to use this energy to make clean, renewable fuel is a very significant discovery,” said Tim Young, CEO of HyperSolar. “We intend to focus all our energies and resources on commercializing this breakthrough technology.”

Inspired by the photosynthetic processes that plants use to harness the power of the sun to create energy molecules, HyperSolar is developing a novel solar-powered nanoparticle system that mimics photosynthesis to separate hydrogen from water. The free hydrogen can then be reacted with carbon dioxide to produce methane, the primary component in natural gas.

“With global consumption projected to surpass coal in 2035, natural gas will be the next great fuel,” continued Mr. Young. “From sunrise to sunset, our proprietary nanoparticles will work in a water based solution to produce clean and environmentally friendly renewable natural gas that can be collected for later use in power plants, industrial plants and vehicles – anywhere and anytime.

…

[dkf]

1. Wow...just wow.

[eppur_se_muova]

18. Maybe. nt

[NickB79]

2. If it works, it could be the solution to mass energy storage for solar

However, I do have a few questions.

1) How efficient is it? If the losses are too great, it wouldn't be cost-effective.

2) Does it require a concentrated source of CO2? If you are trying to be truly carbon-neutral, rather than using a CO2 stream from a coal plant, you'd have to expend energy extracting and compressing the CO2 from the atmosphere. And that would feed into question #1.

That said, if it works well enough, you could create nat. gas from excess solar PV capacity and use the existing infrastructure to cheaply transport it around the country. It could be used to run modified diesel engines for heavy machinery and personal transport, or for home heating.

[OKIsItJustMe]

3. Well, if you want to simply use it to store energy…

… stop at the hydrogen step…

They’re trying to market it as a truly clean source of “natural gas.”

[NickB79]

4. It was my understanding that hydrogen won't work in the current gas system we already have

IMO, the biggest benefit this would offer is the ability to use the existing infrastructure rather than retooling for a hydrogen one.

[OKIsItJustMe]

6. Right, that’s the idea

However, if you’re looking for (on-site) energy storage, you don’t need to worry about using the existing distribution infrastructure.

[Andy823]

5. K&R

There a a lot of ways to get off of oil and coal, we just need companies like this keep on finding those ways!

[OKIsItJustMe]

7. Read more here

http://www.hypersolar.com/technology.php

[buddysmellgood]

8. I think it's a scam.

[hunter]

10. Looks like they have a Buckaroo Banzai scientist on board...

http://www.chemengr.ucsb.edu/people/faculty_d.php?id=9

Didn't like nuclear engineering, didn't like being a surgeon, so now he's doing this...

BS: June 1980 University of California, Berkeley, Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering

MS: June 1982 University of California, Berkeley, Nuclear Engineering

PhD: June 1987, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Nuclear Engineering; M.D. - June 1988, Harvard Medical School


Honors: NSF Presidential Young Investigator (1990-1995); Am. Nuc. Soc. Special Award for Outstanding Advances in Nuc. Tech. (1992); Edgerton Assistant Professorship (1989-91); NIH Grad. Fellowship (1981-82); graduated Summa Cum Laude (1980); Nuclear Engineering Department Citation for First in Department (1980); graduated Summa Cum Laude (1980); elected Tau Beta Pi (Engineering Top 5%, 1980); Stephen Bechtel Scholarship for top engineering junior (1979); University of California Regent's Fellowship (1980-81).

:wow:

Doesn't mean I would or wouldn't throw any money that way.

[Fair Witness]

11. Either a scam or just crazy. It would be insane to convert hydrogen into methane

just to turn around and burn it and release CO2. This is like perpetual motion machines and cold fusion...

[kristopher]

16. No it wouldn't.

It might make sense in some applications. Hydrogen is expensive to convert to electricity and it is difficult to store for any length of time. Methane is compatible with a lot of our existing infrastructure. Of course, a few developments to bring down the price of fuel cells would change that calculus a lot.

[eppur_se_muova]

19. Energy of sunlight is put in at one end, energy of burning released at the other.

No more perpetual motion than plant photosynthesis of sugars -- which plants store, then metabolize for energy.

I'm doubtful that the CO2/CH4 cycle is the best way to accomplish this, though.

[silverweb]

9. Can we stop fracking now?

[kristopher]

12. OKisitme - you've posted academic papers on similar processes before

Do you have more concrete information on the hydrogen production part of this process?

[jtrockville]

13. Maybe they were using the kind of water you can light on fire?

You know, like that fracking water?

[azul]

14. The nano particles are the catalyst for splitting water.

If it can be done commercially, then great.

Cynic in me though says that if there is any possibility of it working as advertised, then the coal producers and burners will buy it up -to bubble CO2 from coal burning with this sun-produced H2 to make coal clean. Or they then could dangle another possibility of clean coal for some extended time while they continue to burn dirty. Would be fantastic if it worked out though too.

Making all those nano particles though will be expensive. A better approach may be to go directly to plant photosynthesis and engineer methane producing genes from bacteria into plants so that some of the sunlight makes methane from or instead of sugars. That would help capture CO2 from the air and swamp us with gas. An energy source grows itself.

[kristopher]

15. According to another press release they are counting on two things to make it profitable

One is that it has value as a method of treating wastewater, so they are looking at it for that purpose. Second is a future higher priced market for natural gas. A good bet if we can get a carbon tax passed.

[eppur_se_muova]

17. Umm ... converting CO2 to CH4 has been known for many decades.

This description (it's a company press release, so some obfuscation, if not outright deception, is expected) makes it unclear whether this is done in a one- or two-step process. The reference to "free hydrogen" makes it sound like a two-step process -- but the idea of recycling the CO2 has been much, much discussed in the literature and is "known art", i.e. not patentable: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabatier_reaction

If their new process is a one-step, or at least one-reactor process, that would seem to justify patent protection -- but it's "in development" (various research groups around the world have been working on this for a couple of decades, so some proof of success is needed).

A far more useful idea than hydrogenation of CO2 to methane would be hydrogenation of CO or CO2 to methanol, the former of which is already done on a large scale (thus guaranteeing the latter could be done, at worst in a two- or three-step process). See http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/the-methanol-alternative

[OKIsItJustMe]

20. It appears to be a 2-step process, in one reactor

http://www.hypersolar.com/technology.php

…

Breakthrough Nanotechnology

At the heart of our breakthrough technology is a functional nanoparticle that serves as a self-contained photoelectrochemical system that contains a solar absorber, encapsulated in a protective shell, which creates an electric charge upon absorbing a photon that then drives the chemical reactions at the cathode and anode. By changing the composition of the solar absorber, cathode and anode, we can “program” our nanoparticles to react with different kinds wastewater streams.

For almost a century, scientists have tried and failed to “split water” cost effectively to produce hydrogen and oxygen. Our process does not produce oxygen (O2), which has no significant value and is an expensive and slow reaction. Unlike conventional electrolysis, where hydrogen and oxygen atoms are completely disassociated using a large voltage, we designed our reactions to use a very small voltage and only produce hydrogen (H2). By elegantly engineering the reaction kinetics toward H2 generation in conjunction with wastewater, our nanoparticles function as one-way machines that detoxify wastewater, and produce clean water and pure hydrogen in the presence of sunlight. No other energy source is required, making this an extremely economical and commercially viable approach to hydrogen production.

Organic Wastewater –> H₂ + Water + Byproducts

Low Cost Reactor

The hydrogen gas generated in the solution can then be easily reacted with CO2 gas injected into the solution to produce methane under a well-known reaction called the Sabatier reaction.

CO₂ + 4H₂ –> CH₄ + 2H₂O
Unlike other approaches to hydrogen and methane production that may require high temperature and high-pressure systems, our reactions are designed to occur at normal pressure and temperature. This allows our reactor to be very low cost and very simple, such as a glass vessel or even clear plastic bag. To achieve world scale operation, we envision acres of very inexpensive reactors installed on vacant, non-productive land, producing massive amounts of carbon neutral methane that can be piped into the existing natural gas infrastructure for everyday use in homes, power plants, factories, and vehicles. Additionally, the valuable byproducts extracted from wastewater can be sold in the global chemical market to further reduce the production cost of renewable natural gas.

[eppur_se_muova]

21. Such a catalyst would justify a patent entirely by itself ...

entirely independently of the method used to create H2. (Thanks for the more detailed link, BTW.)

However, some things still require clarification -- note this peculiar claim:

For almost a century, scientists have tried and failed to “split water” cost effectively to produce hydrogen and oxygen. Our process does not produce oxygen (O2), which has no significant value and is an expensive and slow reaction. Unlike conventional electrolysis, where hydrogen and oxygen atoms are completely disassociated using a large voltage, we designed our reactions to use a very small voltage and only produce hydrogen (H2). By elegantly engineering the reaction kinetics toward H2 generation in conjunction with wastewater, our nanoparticles function as one-way machines that detoxify wastewater, and produce clean water and pure hydrogen in the presence of sunlight. No other energy source is required, making this an extremely economical and commercially viable approach to hydrogen production.

I'm seeing too much advertising copy, not enough science. If you're going to reduce H+ to H2 (by gaining e-), something, somewhere, has to be oxidized (lose e-). Normally, this is the O in H2O, which gets oxidized to O2. They're saying no O2 is produced, but they can produce Cl2 and Br2. It sounds as if they are describing (in obscure fashion) the photoinduced electrolysis of aqueous HCl and HBr:

2HCl ---> H2 + Cl2
2HBr ---> H2 + Br2

Which is easily done by standard electrolysis. Note also:

Waste steams containing acids, such as hydrogen bromide and hydrogen chloride from industrial facilities, can be processed to produce pure bromine and chlorine, which are valuable and marketable byproducts.

Both plausible and interesting, but there's a catch: If they need HCl and HBr to carry out this reaction, it's not going to make much of a dent in the energy market. So far, it looks like a (potentially profitable) way to convert *some* industrial waste streams to fuel and clean water, but the amount of H2 produced will be limited by the amount of HCl or HBr used (also by concentration, since the voltage is concentration-dependent). A good idea, but not a revolution in clean energy.




It really sounds like they have two good ideas here, but they don't fit together as advertised. If they are looking for a closed-loop energy transport system, it might be practical to do something like this:
1. Use their photoelectrolytic process to convert HCl to H2 + Cl2 (energy of sunlight is adsorbed)
2. Recombine (not necessarily in the same location) the H2 and Cl2 in a fuel cell to produce electricity, or mix them in a reactor to produce heat, with HCl being regenerated by either process (energy from sunlight now converted to heat or electricity).
Since I've just posted that idea on the Web, I would have a patent claim on it, but they wouldn't. :P

The STP Sabatier catalyst opens up the possibility of a similar closed loop using CH4 and O2, but that would require regeneration of O2 -- something which they've avoided doing.




ETA: There is one other thing about this which bothers me:

This allows our reactor to be very low cost and very simple, such as a glass vessel or even clear plastic bag. To achieve world scale operation, we envision acres of very inexpensive reactors installed on vacant, non-productive land, producing massive amounts of carbon neutral methane that can be piped into the existing natural gas infrastructure for everyday use in homes, power plants, factories, and vehicles.

Problem: the nanoparticle produces H2 (or CH4? Make up your minds!) at one end, Cl2 or Br2 at the other. H2 (or CH4) + Cl2 reacts explosively, triggered by, uh, light. H2 + Br2 should be safer to handle, but the volume of bromine in commercial use is very small, relative to such things as natural gas. H2 and Br2 will combined in the presence of a catalyst, and I suspect any catalyst that can convert CO2 to CH4 is going to react with Br2. So products will be consumed in situ as fast as they are produced, unless some provision is made to separate the two ends of the nanoreactor so that the two products escape into different vessels. Embedding them in a membrane might do that, as long as the majority of the ends are oriented the same way. If this system works, it's going to end up being more complicated than their optimistic description.

[OKIsItJustMe]

22. I think the key here may be the fact that they’re not using pure water

The fact that they’re using “waste water” suggests to me that the oxygen may be being bound to the impurities in the water.

http://www.hypersolar.com/technology.php

… By changing the composition of the solar absorber, cathode and anode, we can “program” our nanoparticles to react with different kinds wastewater streams.”

…

[OKIsItJustMe]

23. New: HyperSolar Patent Discloses the Key to Making Renewable Natural Gas

http://www.hypersolar.com/news_detail.php?id=18

HyperSolar Patent Discloses the Key to Making Renewable Natural Gas

Company’s technology mimics solar conversion and chemical reaction inside plant leaves

SANTA BARBARA, CA – November 21, 2011 –HyperSolar, Inc. (OTCBB:HYSR), the developer of a breakthrough technology to make renewable natural gas using solar power, today disclosed more information from its patent application for a process to produce renewable natural gas using sunlight, water and carbon dioxide.

Inspired by the photosynthetic processes that plants use to effortlessly harness the power of the Sun to create energy molecules, HyperSolar is developing a novel solar-powered nanoparticle system that mimics photosynthesis to separate hydrogen from water. The free hydrogen can then be reacted with carbon dioxide to produce methane, the primary component in natural gas.

The company’s patent application is entitled, “Photoelectrochemically active heterostructures, methods for their manufacture, and methods and systems for producing desired products.” It discloses the company’s novel low cost manufacturing techniques, nanostructure innovations for high efficiency, and the use of freely available sunlight, waste water and carbon dioxide to produce hydrogen, methane, and other valuable chemical products.

Tim Young, HyperSolar’s CEO, commented, “For almost a century, scientists have tried and failed to ‘split water’ cost effectively to produce hydrogen and oxygen. Our process does not produce oxygen (O2), which has no significant value and is an expensive and slow reaction. Unlike conventional electrolysis, where hydrogen and oxygen atoms are completely disassociated using a large voltage, we designed our reactions to use a very small voltage and only produce hydrogen (H2).

…