Reply #11: A next generation battery? You mean like a hydrogen fuel cell? [View All]

[Random_Australian]

:)

No really.

A) Extracting hydrogen from water takes a lot of electricity normally, and will always take a fair bit. But currently, a research is making that a lot less. (1)

B) "If we decide to produce electricity via non green house gas emitting technology, then why go to the effort to make hydrogen for a fuel cell which will produce... electricity"

Because we need to store the energy somehow. Solar cells and hydroelectric systems are not portable in quantities enough to power a car.

"Storing and transporting hydrogen has proven to be a fairly hard problem to solve ( ultra high pressure tanks"

Right, so we don't want to use tanks. If only someone else had thought "hmmmmm, let's not use hydrogen as a gas" (2)

C) "Why not simply store the electricity directly, via an ultra capacitor or next generation battery"

- Of the three ideas here (hydrogen fuel cell, advanced rechargeable lithium battery, capacitor of doom) the only two good options are the first two.

It's hard to recharge something like a lithium fuel cell, and hard to recharge a hydrogen fuel cell. You are right, however, when talking about hydrogen filling stations - they are a real problem for hydrogen storage. But really, the first of hydrogen or lithium to become commercially viable will probably be enough of a success to get whatever infrastructure change is needed, given what's going on with oil.

Note: I've only been talking about lithium batteries. Lithium is of a small enough size that it doesn't distort the framework too much when moving in and out. This is very important for purely solid batteries. (Determines how many times you can recharge it, among other things)

(1)"A review and recent developments in photocatalytic water-splitting using TiO2 for hydrogen production " Meng Nia, Michael K.H. Leung, Dennis Y.C. Leunga and K. Sumathy.
Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews Volume 11, Issue 3, April 2007, Pages 401-425

(2)"Hydrogen Storage in Microporous Metal-Organic Frameworks" Nathaniel L. Rosi, Juergen Eckert, Mohamed Eddaoudi, David T. Vodak, Jaheon Kim, Michael O'Keeffe, Omar M. Yaghi.
Science 16 May 2003:Vol. 300. no. 5622, pp. 1127 - 1129