UNM wants to "link the world of biofuels with the world of fuel cells."
We've heard that ethanol is the worst kind of renewable energy. Is it a good idea to use it in hydrogen fuel cells? Over at the University of New Mexico, a team of researchers led by Associate Professor of Chemical and Nuclear Engineering Plamen Atanassov (pictured) is trying to figure out the answer to that question by starting an ethanol/hydrogen fuel cell research team. The Department of Energy is funding the program with an annual grant of $750,000 for up to six years through EPSCoR. The basic concept is to see if ethanol can be reformed to make hydrogen, which will then turn around and be used in a fuel cell. If successful, the next stage will be to see if direct electrochemical oxidation of the ethanol can be achieved. While we're at least slightly interested to see if this could one day be used to power a car, Atanassov has got even
[Source: UNM via Domestic Fuel]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Carney 10:21AM (12/30/2008)
What a ridiculous waste of money.
Hydrogen is a carrier of energy, not a source of it, unless you can get it in its pure form, which you can't on Earth. Getting it from water is prohibitively expensive, and extracting it from ethanol is pointless, since ethanol is a far more convenient, effective, safe, and inexpensive vehicle fuel.
http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/the-hydrogen-hoax
Fuel cells are OK if you're willing to spend a million dollars on one and it only has to last a couple of weeks in an exquisitely carefully controlled atmospheric environment. A space shuttle mission, say. But as a power source for a land vehicle they make no economic or engineering sense.
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stas peterson 11:04PM (1/14/2009)
Typical government twiddlling.
Take the money from people that can use to advance the state of the art, and then divide it into ever tinier pieces. to buy the most votes. Then spend gargantuan percentages of it in bidding, monitoring and reporting progress on these useless projects. Then distribute it to produce lots of waste paper.
Government funded research at its best.
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Scatter 12:01PM (12/30/2008)
That seems a strange way to go about generating electricity. Wouldn't it be better to grow biomass and burn that to generate electricity and then capture the heat and use that for industrial / domestic purposes?
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GenWaylaid 12:20AM (12/31/2008)
Strange, I've never found my phone's battery so inadequate that I wanted to replace it with such a complicated system. Then again, I mostly use my phone to place calls so I may not be putting it to typical use.
The only significant upshot I can see to an ethanol fuel cell for consumer electronics is that it would be easy to refill in any bar. Unless you already carry around a hip flask, however, recharging from electricity would seem to be more convenient.
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Chris M 2:20AM (12/31/2008)
Well, compared to hydrogen, ethanol is certainly easier to store and handle, and it takes up much less space. There is some energy loss involved in reforming fuel to produce H2, but the improved storage might make it worthwhile.
But maybe we should consider developing fuel cells that doesn't need H2, that can use fuel directly without reforming. We've already seen solid oxide fuel cells that run on hydrocarbon fuels, and molten carbonate fuel cells that run on carbon, so why not one that runs directly on ethanol?
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