Hydrogen Cars: A Dream That Won't Die
http://www.technologyreview.com/news/429495/hydrogen-cars-a-dream-that-wont-die/[font size=4]Better technology and high battery costs have revived interest in hydrogen-guzzling vehicles.[/font]
Peter Fairley
Monday, October 8, 2012
[font size=3]By the mid-2000s, the dream of hydrogen-powered cars had faded in the face of stubborn practicalities like the lack of charging stations and the inefficiency of fuel cells. But as the auto industry wrestles with the limitations of battery-powered electric vehicles, the dream lives on. That is apparent at the Paris Auto Show.
When the show opened last month, battery-driven electric vehicles stood front and center (see "Renault and Others Debut Electric Cars at Paris Show"
. But hydrogen-fuel-cell vehicles were also omnipresent. Show visitors could test-drive seven fuel-cell cars from leading automakers (including an SUV that Hyundai plans to begin leasing this winter), and a bevy of snazzy concept cars conjured up visions of a hydrogen-fueled future.
Automakers are showing new interest because key problems with fuel cells—their limited capacity to convert hydrogen to electricity and their susceptibility to freezing—have largely been overcome in recent years. At the same time, the first mass-produced electric vehicles based on batteries—the fuel cell's technological rival for the zero-emissions mantle—have seen sales slow because their range remains disappointing and their prices high.
Even Nissan, which leads the global electric-vehicle market with its Leaf subcompact and has vowed to sell 1.5 million battery-powered vehicles by 2016 with corporate partner Renault, is showing a powerful fuel-cell SUV as a concept car in Paris. The company's strategy reflects widely held views in the automotive industry, according to consultancy KPMG. Of the 200 executives polled in its 2012 Global Auto Executive Survey, those predicting that electric-car buyers of 2025 will prefer a fuel cell outnumbered those backing battery technology by 25 percent.
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carbon nano-fibers.
http://newenergyandfuel.com/http:/newenergyandfuel/com/2009/07/03/chicken-feathers-can-store-lots-of-hydrogen/
Chicken Feathers Can Store Lots of Hydrogen
July 3, 2009 | 4 Comments
Carbonized chicken feather fibers can hold vast amounts of hydrogen according to Richard P. Wool, Ph.D., professor of chemical engineering and director of the Affordable Composites from Renewable Resources program at the University of Delaware in Newark.
Chicken feather fibers are mostly made of keratin, a natural protein that forms strong, hollow tubes. When heated, the protein creates cross links, which strengthen its structure, and it also becomes more porous, increasing its surface area. The result is carbonized chicken feather fibers, which can absorb as much or perhaps more hydrogen than carbon nanotubes or metal hydrides, two other materials being studied for their hydrogen storage potential, Wool says. Plus, they’re dirt-cheap.
The project goal is to develop new low cost hydrogen storage substrates from the waste material chicken feathers (some 6 billion lbs/yr in U.S. alone). The results show that carbonized chicken feathers have the potential to meet the DOE requirements for H2 storage of 81 grams H2 per L in 2015 and are competitive with carbon nanotubes and metal hydrides at a tiny fraction of the cost. When keratin based chicken feathers are heat treated by a controlled pyrolysis process, hollow carbon microtubes are formed with nanoporous walls. Their specific surface area increases up to 450 m2/g by the formation of fractals and micropores thus enabling more hydrogen adsorption than the raw, untreated feather fibers.
Wool estimates that it would take a 75-gallon tank to go 300 miles in a car using carbonized chicken feather fibers to store hydrogen. He says his team is working to improve that range.
http://www.nanowerk.com/spotlight/spotid=4154.php
New carbon nanotube hydrogen storage results surpass Freedom Car requirements
(Nanowerk Spotlight) Two of the major challenges of our modern, mobile society are the shrinking of available fossil energy resources on one hand and climate change associated with global warming on the other. Continuing population growth multiplied by the increase in consumption and living standards, especially in developing countries, will require more and more oil, coal and natural gas to 'power' humanity. Notwithstanding efforts like the Kyoto Protocol - which wasn't signed by the two major CO2 polluters China and the U.S. - an ever increasing rate of fossil fuel usage means that the increasing emission of CO2 is likely to cause an acceleration of the climate change that is in progress already.
Transportation, in particular passenger cars, is one of the areas where new technology could lead to environmental beneficial change. Never mind that GM is still selling 15-20,000 Hummers a year, or that Tata is planning to sell millions of its new Nano car. One of the much touted technological solutions is to substitute fossil hydrocarbon based energy with the energy from carbon-free sources like the sun, nuclear energy, or the hot interior of the Earth and use hydrogen as an energy carrier (read more about this in "The Hydrogen Economy" .
Hydrogen can be produced from water using energy from carbon-free sources [editor's note: unfortunately it can also be produced from dirty fossil fuels; see the Nanowerk Spotlight "Nanotechnology could clean up the hydrogen car's dirty little secret"] and can serve as fuel in fuel cells to generate electricity, either stationary or on board of vehicles. Considerable research efforts are going into the evaluation of various nanostructures, such as carbon nanotubes, to find the most suitable hydrogen storage materials.
Safe, efficient and compact hydrogen storage is a major challenge in order to realize hydrogen powered transport. According to the DOE Freedom CAR program roadmap the on-board hydrogen storage system should provide 6 weight % (wt%) of hydrogen capacity to be considered for the technological implementation.
Currently, the storage of hydrogen in the absorbed form is considered as the most appropriate way to solve this problem. Thus, a media capable of absorbing and releasing large quantities of hydrogen easily and reliably is being actively sought. Since claims by Dillon et al. that single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNT) can store hydrogen, this material has been considered as a candidate for hydrogen storage media ("Storage of hydrogen in single-walled carbon nanotubes" .
And, in the meantime, we need to focus on other alternative energy sources, too. Hemp, anyone? 
You maintain all that optimism with an illegal smile? (
