BYU research hints at a possibility of a fuel cell powered by sugar
When it comes to sugar and cars, there's a type of cellulosic ethanol made from sugarcane, much of which is produced in Brazil. However, researchers at Brigham Young University (BYU) have developed a catalyst that breaks glucose molecules in such a way that electrons, and therefore electricity, can be obtained. This research means there is the possibility of a "sweet" type of fuel cell. The catalyst was obtained from a herbicide that helps break the sugar down and liberates electrons. The process has a 29 percent conversion rate, meaning that 7 of the 24 available electrons per glucose molecule are transferred. According to BYU, the process could be good enough to power cars using cheaper components than hydrogen fuel cells: sugar and this herbicide aren't expensive at all and are surely quite earth-friendly. Hat tip to Ray!
[Source: BYU]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
jim 8:23AM (10/05/2009)
Weren't the clowns involved in the cold fusion fraud of a few years ago also at BYU?
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mt_tdi 10:47AM (10/05/2009)
No. The cold fusion debacle was at the University of Utah.
Dave 9:13AM (10/05/2009)
How many acres of forest and farmland will we have to destroy to power our cars?
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Carney 10:19AM (10/05/2009)
Farming farmland doesn't "destroy" it.
There's huge slack capacity in the domestic and world ag sector. Only half the arable land in the US is farmland, and a large majority of our farmland is uncultivated, idle, often deliberately and with government encouragement to prop up prices.
If our fuel base shifted to biomass, demand for ag products would soar and we'd put more of our farmland into productive use.
Furthermore we could drop our stupid destructive tariffs on Third World ag products and allow desperate people to move from subsistence to cash crops, earn hard currency, and join modernity. Rather than destroy forests to scratch a living with low-productivity subsistence, they will be able to use modern methods to dramatically increase per-acre yields on less acreage.
Finally, in the case of sugarcane, almost none of it is grown in the rain forest area of Brazil because the soil there is too wet to be suitable. Instead it is grown hundreds of miles away in the southern grassland regions. Brazil even passed a law banning sugarcane it the Amazon basin to deal with this perception problem but oil cartel lies die hard.
Shock Me 9:17AM (10/05/2009)
No Fleischmann and Pons were at University of Utah at the time.
I am curious to know about the pesticide though.
If this turns out to be re-producable, it might be a useful thing for the down-on-their-luck Caribbean people to grow not to mention domestic sugar beet farmers and corn syrup producers.
It would be nice to hear more about this.
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Carney 9:34AM (10/05/2009)
"it might be a useful thing for the down-on-their-luck Caribbean people to grow not to mention domestic sugar beet farmers and corn syrup producers."
Such people and others like them could indeed provide a significant portion of our fuel supply, but it makes far more economic sense for that fuel to be ethanol.
Carney 9:32AM (10/05/2009)
Cheaper than hydrogen fuel cells? Given that a hydrogen fuel cell stack needs several hundred thousand dollars worth of platinum in it, and costs over a million dollars all told, that's not much of an accomplishment.
Meanwhile, just making a car fully flex-fueled, able to run equally as easily on any alcohol fuel (ethanol, methanol, propanol, butanol, etc) as on gasoline, costs automakers no more than $130 per car.
Which of course is why it's affordable for Brazil to mandate that all new cars sold there be flex-fueled.
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Dave 10:18AM (10/05/2009)
"Cheaper than hydrogen fuel cells? Given that a hydrogen fuel cell stack needs several hundred thousand dollars worth of platinum in it, and costs over a million dollars all told, that's not much of an accomplishment."
Does anyone actually read the articles on this blog?
http://green.autoblog.com/2009/08/17/honey-i-shrunk-the-fuel-cell-next-gen-gm-hydrogen-stack-gets-s/
Carney 10:21AM (10/05/2009)
Dave, hydrogen was, is, and always will be a complete joke.
http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/the-hydrogen-hoax
Rick 10:52AM (10/05/2009)
From that shrunk the stack article
"The fourth-gen stack in the Equinox uses 80 g of platinum while the new stack uses just 30 g. This stack is due for production in volumes of up to 10,000 units a year by the middle of the next decade. In the subsequent iteration, GM plans to have the platinum content down to under 10 g, which would put it on a par with current catalytic converters."
30 g is about 1 ounce or about $1200. - and 10grams would be about $400. - not several hundred thousand Carney.
Oh4Sh0 11:50AM (10/05/2009)
As per Robert's post, Hydrogen is a way off, but the costs will come down and it may eventually be feasible. Probably not feasible and in a mass production scenario until around 2020, however.
polo 4:35PM (10/05/2009)
Its not the platinum itself that makes the fuel cell expensive, its the stack itself. Its comparable to building a Formula 1 engine, the process and technology behind it is what brings the cost up near the seven-figure range, and for the same reasons its doubtful it will go down in cost to a range where you'd buy an FCV over a regular Camary or Ford.
Chris M 2:50AM (10/06/2009)
This particular fuel cell doesn't require platinum, the organic catalyst is far cheaper, and the resulting fuel cell should also be a lot cheaper to manufacture than any H2 fuel cell. The important question is, how durable is it?
With an efficiency far higher than "sugar to ethanol fueled IC engine", a fuel cell cost lower than H2 fuel cells, a less expensive fuel than H2, and a far less expensive fuel storage than H2, it could end up beating out both ethanol and H2 as a future vehicle fuel.
quixote 10:56AM (10/05/2009)
The herbicide in question is related to Paraquat. The process sounds interesting, but that's not a harmless catalyst, even if it is "cheap" in a non-environmental way.
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Doug 1:37PM (10/05/2009)
My friend's ex-wife already tried this by putting sugar directly in his gas tank. Didn't work out so well...
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mike 6:30PM (10/05/2009)
.... but the sugar won't stay cheap if we start powering the fleet with it.
time to start freezing cookies for a rainy day I guess.
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garyharris1932 4:04PM (10/06/2009)
I like the idea of using hydrogen for fuel however I was stunned to learn that hydrogen tanks empty themselves over a short time much like helium.
Some of the gasoline/alcohol stations here have gone to pure gasoline. Sam's club never did buy into the additive alcohol. Alcohol does not have the power as pure gasoline. Yamaha outboards say that 10% alcohol is the limit, above 10% could ruin your motor.
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