I've wondered if aluminum powder could be used in this way. It's the most common metal in the world, cheap and available.
Powerpaste, a hydrogen technology for small vehicles
21–30 of 98 posts
Re: Powerpaste, a hydrogen technology for small vehicles
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem with every hydrocarbon-based fuel is that you need the carbon. You get that from CO2. But then you need to get the CO2. Where do you get it from? From a fossil-based plant? Well, ideally you'd want to get rid of those, not exactly smart to create incentives to keep them running. The alternative is either biomass (problematic) or direct air capture (expensive and inefficient). (Some insightful discussion o…
or direct air capture (expensive and inefficient) The big question in my mind is whether direct air capture is inherently expensive and inefficient...or if this is just a chicken/egg problem where we haven't invested time and money in making it cheaper because it's expensive, and it's expensive because we haven't invested time and money in making it cheaper. I don't know enough about physics and chemistry to answer t…
It seems pretty obvious that extracting a gas that is less than a tenth of a percent in the air is inherently difficult.
That said: I'm all for investing in DAC technology. We will definitely need it for some sectors. But you need to consider the costs and if there are alternatives they will in many cases make more sense.
Re: Powerpaste, a hydrogen technology for small vehicles
#23In '99, while working at a solar hydrogen startup as a recent grad, I was exposed to a fellow who proposed to transport H in the form of H2O, and his solution for cracking it was to make purple ping pong balls filled w/ Na. He'd deliver a hopper of Na ping pong balls, and a machine filled with water. Feed balls into the machine, which would then use a ram to split the balls underwater, and siphon off the resulting H2…
If you're going to use metallic sodium as energy storage you might as well use it directly in a battery.
Re: Powerpaste, a hydrogen technology for small vehicles
#24In '99, while working at a solar hydrogen startup as a recent grad, I was exposed to a fellow who proposed to transport H in the form of H2O, and his solution for cracking it was to make purple ping pong balls filled w/ Na. He'd deliver a hopper of Na ping pong balls, and a machine filled with water. Feed balls into the machine, which would then use a ram to split the balls underwater, and siphon off the resulting H2…
There was another group during that era doing something similar with sodium hydroxide, which is a little less... violent. Not quite sure I recall how that chemistry worked, but I think the idea is 'find something where the hydrogen bonds are easier to crack than H2O'.
Now there are other groups trying to figure out if they can increase the power capacity of batteries by replacing the electrolyte. Which sounds like a fuel cell/battery hybrid to me.
Re: Powerpaste, a hydrogen technology for small vehicles
#25In '99, while working at a solar hydrogen startup as a recent grad, I was exposed to a fellow who proposed to transport H in the form of H2O, and his solution for cracking it was to make purple ping pong balls filled w/ Na. He'd deliver a hopper of Na ping pong balls, and a machine filled with water. Feed balls into the machine, which would then use a ram to split the balls underwater, and siphon off the resulting H2…
Not that internal combustion engines are the model to aspire to... but they're just a metal contraption full of explosions. Being terrifying isn't necessarily a disqualifier, haha.
Full of combustions, not explosions.
“The speed of the reaction is what distinguishes an explosive reaction from an ordinary combustion reaction.” - Wikipedia on explosion.
“An internal combustion engine nominally operates on a controlled rapid burn.” - WP on combustion.
Re: Powerpaste, a hydrogen technology for small vehicles
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
Neither does this substance though. It releases hydrogen when in contact with water, not explode or combust. It might, of course, explode if sparks are introduced but the same thing can happen to hydrocarbon based fuels. In any case, what a substance does when rained on is not very relevant for a fuel that is kept in a fuel tank at all times. By the time it's exposed to the weather, the vehicle must have crashed and…
No hydrocarbon fuels aren't oxygenated. Put a spark plug in your gas tank, run it day and night - nothing. Has to be oxygen in there.
The same happens in a pure hydrogen atmosphere? Not sure what you are trying to convey here.
Re: Powerpaste, a hydrogen technology for small vehicles
#27Solving hydrogen storage has great implications. Hydrogen has high gravimetric energy density (1 kWh worth of H2 is light) but very low volumetric density (1 kWh takes up a large volume). Easy solutions are compressed hydrogen (H2 is a small molecule and easily escapes even through a material, steel embrittlement and energy for compression are big issues), cryogenic cooling (energy intensive and cryocoolers have sign…
> One thing they didn’t mention is energy used for round trip per unit of H2 and cost of the material itself.
I also did not see anything about recycling the carrier materials which seems suspiciously odd in a context so closely related to environmentalism.
But the big picture news is that this is another datapoint that shows how, like you said, the solution space for what I like to call "bound hydrogen" is apparently not exhausted at all yet. In recent months I have seen (all on hn) power-to-ammonia, that Dutch group that proposes iron powder as a heat fuel of roughly coal performance that is recycled by reducing the returned iron oxide powder with hydrogen (and started to fuel a brewery as a pilot) and now this "powerpaste" which sound like straight out of the back to the future future. The claimed energy density is absolutely amazing! If the required infrastructure hardware is small enough it could be a gamechanger for BEV: size the battery to be sufficient for 80% of driving days and install the "1000 miles extra" block where it can be accessed for replacing, e.g. where an ICE car would have it's engine. Chances are the extra miles fuel won't be cheap, but you'll surely be able to buy a lot of RX refills for the battery cost saved if a strong majority majority of your driving can be done on battery only.
I always considered the term "hydrogen economy" silly because of how annoying H2 is to deal with at scale, but "bound hydrogen" can change that in so many ways. It's almost as if hindsight was trying to win a bet or something wrt how we look back at George W. Bush, first him appearing so unexpectedly presidential compared to a certain successor, then suddenly hydrogen economy ceases to be a joke. What's next, discovery of actual WMD so they could have well stayed honest had they just looked a little harder? Harris becoming president after "pretzel incident 2"? Bound hydrogen is the most exciting technology field since many years.
Re: Powerpaste, a hydrogen technology for small vehicles
#281) What happens to the waste?
2) How much energy is required to make the paste?
Re: Powerpaste, a hydrogen technology for small vehicles
#29I'm trying and failing to come up with a use case where this is more practical than a rechargeable (and/or swappable) battery in a scooter.
Refueling something like this would be faster than recharging, but if "quick recharge" is part of your requirements then it's straightforward to make a scooter battery swappable and maybe even standardized across brands.
Power outlets are ubiquitous, and these things just don't use enough energy to be more than a rounding error on anyone's electric bill (100 (scooter) km worth of energy is roughly the difference between washing your hands in hot water instead of cold water for 30 seconds).
There might a weight savings but lithium ion is something like 60 grams per kilometer of range for a light, slow vehicle. So a reasonable range battery is not prohibitively heavy even for a vehicle that you have to carry.
I'm sure there's a use case for this stuff, and scooters are trendy right now, but I don't think the two are a good match.
Re: Powerpaste, a hydrogen technology for small vehicles
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
No hydrocarbon fuels aren't oxygenated. Put a spark plug in your gas tank, run it day and night - nothing. Has to be oxygen in there.
The same happens in a pure hydrogen atmosphere? Not sure what you are trying to convey here.
Sorry, that comment about a spark being a problem prompted my comment. I must have misunderstood.