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“Eureka moment” as Australian researchers make hydrogen storage breakthrough

reneweconomy.com.au

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Re: “Eureka moment” as Australian researchers make hydrogen storage breakthrough

#21

Post by [deleted] »

cbmuser wrote: post #12
causality0 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The catch is that hydrogen storage is the smallest of the problems facing the nascent hydrogen economy. Energy losses in electrolysis and in the conversion from hydrogen to electricity are by far the biggest piece of the efficiency-loss pie.

Electrolysis is only one method to make hydrogen. Another one is using high-temperature reactors which have a much higher efficiency and don’t need as much energy. Research on the matter is being made in Japan, see: > https://www.jaea.go.jp/04/o-arai/en/research/research_03.htm...

[deleted]

Re: “Eureka moment” as Australian researchers make hydrogen storage breakthrough

#22

Post by adrian_b »

pengaru wrote: post #19
gene-h wrote: post #14

This article is complete BS. The abstract of the publication does not mention hydrogen at all, and in fact concerns storage and separation of acetylene and ethylene gas, which are hydrocarbons, not hydrogen. This petrochemical storage and separation technique is about as far as it gets from green hydrogen

Except the lead researcher is quoted as saying hydrogen: “We were so surprised to see this happen, but each time we kept getting the exact same result, it was a eureka moment,” said lead researcher Dr Srikanth Mateti. “There is no waste, the process requires no harsh chemicals and creates no by-products. …This means you could store hydrogen anywhere and use it whenever it’s needed.” “The current way of storing hydrog…

The absorption method described in the research article is dependent on the existence of pairs of carbon atoms with multiple bonds between them.

It is clearly stated that the gases with simple bonds between carbon and hydrogen or carbon and carbon are not absorbed. The 2 atoms in dihydrogen have a simple bond very similar to that between hydrogen and carbon.

So everything said in the research article is consistent with pure hydrogen not being absorbed by their powder.

Therefore it is quite certain that the reporter has misunderstood and distorted the quotation from the researcher.

Also, there are well known methods of storing pure hydrogen by absorption in solids, e.g. using palladium or rare-earth intermetallic compounds, like in the NiMH rechargeable batteries, but those methods are not suited for large-scale storage due to high cost or other limitations.

So the quotation from the researcher would have been wrong anyway, because high pressures or low temperatures are not the only ways to store dihydrogen, so a comparison of advantages and disadvantages with all methods would have been needed.

Re: “Eureka moment” as Australian researchers make hydrogen storage breakthrough

#23

Post by brutusborn »

aunty_helen wrote: post #9

Oh goody, more paid for news about hydrogens bright future hitting the front page of hn. When it’s a better ecosystem than battery-electric let’s see that as the number 1 spot.

It's not either/or. The methods have different tradeoffs so they are useful in different applications. E.g. methane reforming has the potential to turn natural gas resources into low emissions hydrogen.

Re: “Eureka moment” as Australian researchers make hydrogen storage breakthrough

#24

Post by mwt »

Blammar wrote: post #18

There's no actual storage density information, is there? Nothing in KJ/m^3 units. Ball milling to shove gas into nanoparticles seems counterintuitive, as ball milling is typically used to grind particles smaller. I could imagine if we really had nanodust of BN+20H2 (or whatever) that it'd be (a) potentially very combustible (b) potentially dangerous to lungs when inhaled. (Presumably, at some temperature, hydrogen be…

> There's no actual storage density information, is there? Nothing in KJ/m^3 units.

Even if there was (to be honest, didn't read the journal article) this is something that can easily be hacked. Energy storage research papers regularly hack energy density numbers by reporting the kJ/cc values of a tiny (like order 1 g) fleck of nanoparticle dust, which totally misrepresents the physics that matters are scale (i.e. in an EV).

Scaling up stuff is hard, including when you're moving from micron scale to cm scale.

Re: “Eureka moment” as Australian researchers make hydrogen storage breakthrough

#27

Post by lostlogin »

supernova87a wrote: post #26

> " the process consumes 76.8 KJ/s to store and separate 1000L of gases " I have a feeling this reporter doesn't quite know what she's talking about.

If correct, what would this mean? Storing requires energy input?

Re: “Eureka moment” as Australian researchers make hydrogen storage breakthrough

#28

Post by [deleted] »

causality0 wrote: post #15
cbmuser wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Electrolysis is only one method to make hydrogen. Another one is using high-temperature reactors which have a much higher efficiency and don’t need as much energy. Research on the matter is being made in Japan, see: > https://www.jaea.go.jp/04/o-arai/en/research/research_03.htm...

Electrolysis efficiency is 76%. What sort of numbers are they getting with this high-temp reactor doohickey?

[deleted]

Re: “Eureka moment” as Australian researchers make hydrogen storage breakthrough

#30

Post by dzhiurgis »

s_Hogg wrote: post #2

Anyone know what the catch is here? Very exciting if real, but sometimes these things don't scale/aren't commercial/something else I'm ill-equipped to perceive. Not trying to knock this by any means, I hope it works wonderfully!

Probably to sell something to government, where NZ and AU is are still wasting tons of money on hydrogen feasibility projects.
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