PNNL scientists suggest using hydrogen 'pellets of power'
Lets get two pieces of commentary out of the way right off the bat. One, who else thought of the movie Goonies when they read "pellets of power"? "Pinchers of peril, saved by my pinchers of peril"! - Data, aka Jonathan Ke Quan. Two, how awesome is the name "The Department of Energy's Chemical Hydrogen Storage Center of Excellence"? Maybe we should change our name from AutoblogGreen to "The Weblogs, Inc. Blog of Green Automotive News of Excellence". I like the way that rolls out, kind of like Wile E. Coyote, Super Genius. I'll pass that one on to the higher-ups. Now, on to the news at hand.
The aforementioned center of Excellence is hard at work researching a way to store hydrogen in a way that is less costly, easier to transport and easier to refill than common high-pressure storage tanks. One method that they see promise in is with solid ammonia borane pellets. Apparently, these pellets can hold quite a bit of hydrogen. They also believe that they can manipulate the release of the hydrogen from these pellets, creating a "throttling" effect similar to what we are used to with gasoline engines. Unfortunately, the pellets must then be emptied from the vehicle and chemically processed and refilled. That doesn't seem quite as easy as just refilling a liquid fuel. At the very best, this sounds like a very long-term possibility, something the DOE researchers seem to understand themselves.
[Source: DOE PNNL]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
CM 3:14AM (8/24/2007)
This was mentioned recently on the "Cosmic Log" on MSNBC. One of the posters there commented that ammonia borane might be explosive, several borane compounds are known to be explosively unstable.
The PNNL website stated that 1 mililiter of ammonium borate (about 3 of the pellets shown) could produce 1.8 liters of H2 - but didn't mention that was the energy equivalent of 0.5 mililiters of gasoline - just a few drops. Better plan for a really big bin to hold all the pellets.
Of course, ammonium boride will be more expensive than the already costly H2 fuel.
For a more exotic use of boron as a vehicle fuel, see:
http://www.eagle.ca/~gcowan/boron_blast.html
Not practical, but interesting.
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Red 9:58AM (8/29/2007)
Solid Hydrogen Storage is nothing new.
Why not check out:
http://www.ovonic-hydrogen.com/home/home.htm
then click on the "Value of Solid Hydrogen Storage" under 'Hydrogen Highlights' for a Very informative video.
I don't know why I don't see more about Mr. Ovshinsky in the media, including online. The only coverage of his technology I ever saw was on "Scientific Frontiers" with Alan Alda on PBS.
Hydrogen is for NOW...not 15-20 yrs in the future. The only thing stopping this technology is the 2 oil-men in the White House and their cronies.
also goto: http://clean-air.org
This is the American Hydrogen Assn. web-site.
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