Hydrogen breakthrough

[DanishDynamite]

Hydrogen pill raises fuel hopes

Excerpt:

Christensen, along with his team of scientists at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU), have found a way to store hydrogen in a tablet form, overcoming one of the biggest problems with using hydrogen: storage.

'The last 20 years, researchers worldwide have tried to find a practical way to store hydrogen. Without it, there is no hope for hydrogen to become a dominant fuel typ. We have found that way,' Christensen, who is professor of chemistry at DTU, told daily newspaper Jyllands-Posten.

.....

'Before, the amount of hydrogen needed to fuel a passenger vehicle for 500 kilometres occupied the same space as nine passenger vehicles. With our pill, the same amount of energy can be contained in a normal 50 litre tank,' said Christensen.

Other hydrogen fuel experts said that the innovation was nothing short of a breakthrough.

'Not least because the hydrogen pill doesn't lose energy when it isn't in use,' said Andreas Züttel, a professor of physics with Fribourg University in Switzerland.

Wow. A hundred-fold reduction in storage size. Not bad. In a somewhat related story, the new Danish company H2Logic announced a (small) vehicle running on H2 the other day. What's interesting is that the CEO says that the new technology mentioned above can easily be used on their product.

Coolness.

 

[luchog]

That's pretty cool. Would go great with something like this:

Fuel Cell Motorbike to Hit U.S. Streets

Unfortunately, hydrogen is a highly inefficient technology currently. It's heavily based on fossil fuel sources (though biodiesel can also be used). Non-fossil-fuel sources have a strongly negative energy economy.

 

[drkitten]

Non-fossil-fuel sources have a strongly negative energy economy.

So do batteries, and that doesn't stop them from being widely used.

 

[Soapy Sam]

A hydrogen "pill" does sound like jolly good terrorist bomb making material though.