How water could be the future of fuel. New generation of fuels could power planes, ships without warming the planet-WAPO

[Caribbeans]

How water could be the future of fuel.

New generation of fuels could power planes & ships without warming the planet

By Nicolás Rivero and Emily Wright | WAPO | June 27, 2024

CORPUS CHRISTI, Tex. — The tangle of pipes at this industrial plant doesn’t stand out in this city built around the carbon-heavy business of pumping oil and refining it into fuel for planes, ships, trucks and cars.

But this plant produces fuel from a different source, one that doesn’t belch greenhouse pollution: hydrogen. Specifically, hydrogen made from water using renewable electricity, also known as green hydrogen.

This process could represent the biggest change in how fuel for planes, ships, trains and trucks is made since the first internal combustion engine fired up in the 19th century. In his 1874 science fiction novel “The Mysterious Island,” Jules Verne predicted that “water will be the coal of the future.” This plant, one of the first in the world to transform water into fuel, shows what that looks like on the ground today.



Turning hydrogen into liquid fuel could help slash planet-warming pollution from heavy vehicles, cutting a key source of emissions that contribute to climate change. But to fulfill that promise, companies will have to build massive numbers of wind turbines and solar panels to power the energy-hungry process. Regulators will have to make sure hydrogen production doesn’t siphon green energy that could go towards cleaning up other sources of global warming gases, such as homes or factories...more
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/interactive/2024/green-hydrogen-water-clean-fuel-process/

[msongs]

1. great...if they use salt water, cuz we have an ever growing supply of that nt

[Caribbeans]

2. 22 Liters of H2 in ONE TABLESPOON of water

Instead of perfecting next gen drones & surveillance tech imagine perfecting salt water H2 fuel cells. Looks like China will be first though. They are way ahead.

[kiri]

4. water will never be a fuel, ocean water especially not

This is a whole lot of nonsense. Where do you get magnesium electrodes? Why.., by extracting Mg from sea water and refining it with large electrical currents. Which you get how?

Notice he used nice pure salt, NaCl. That is not sea salt--which contains bromine, iodine, potassium, whale shit, and lots of stuff not in a cutesy "demo".

When you electrolyze sea water, you do not get hydrogen and oxygen. You make Clorox, sodium hypochlorite!

And planet Earth is running low on fresh water already, so the idea of diverting tons of it for energy is ludicrous. Besides that, water is not a source of chemical or electrical energy (mechanical maybe when it falls from a high place).

[OKIsItJustMe]

7. Trains will never go faster than 10 MPH (the passengers would all suffocate!)

Planes will never fly faster than sound. Their metal frames will disintegrate.

https://www.rmit.edu.au/news/all-news/2023/feb/hydrogen-seawater

How to make hydrogen straight from seawater – no desalination required
Researchers have developed a cheaper and more energy-efficient way to make hydrogen directly from seawater, in a critical step towards a truly viable green hydrogen industry.

…

[kiri]

12. us trrains can sometimes go faster

I know your point. But certain things in the physical world are absolute: there is no cold lower than absolute zero (-259 C); you cannot send a space ship faster than the speed of light, ca $3,000,000 m/sec; Preachers and priests argued that invisible germs cannot cause disease--only a god can make you sick; humans cannot fly by flapping their arms.... No perpetual motion machine is possible.
I am sympathetic for pe3ople who iwiwsh to explorte aqndf find new things. I am enormously distrustful of people who make outlandish claims, usually for fun and profitm and fame. And it hurts me thqatn so many unknowledgeable people are taken iin, often to their finasncial hurt.

There is no gizmo for $49.95 that will make your car run on water (not even a hybrid).. or give you 100 mpg (altho much supressed).

Your point about trains is really only true for the USA. Europeans, Chinese, Japanese, Koreans make trains that go faster than 200 mph, 360 kph. Even 450 kph and remain on their rails (whereas US trains routinely fall off their rails even at 60 mph). So you cannot advance an idea that only applies to a subgroup addicted to cowcatchers and cowboys (it was James Watt (1736-1819) in England that made steam power.)

I give the authors credit for acknowledging the Chlorine issue. They admit they don't know what to do about it either.

There are only 4 Four Forces in nature, in the Universe;
1. the Gravitational force;
2. The Electromagnetic force;
3. The Strong nuclear force;
4. The Weak nuclear force.
The EM force is responsible for all atoms, all sound and light, all life, all biology, all mechanical and electrical matters, all matter--for sure, and most energy--burning, hydro, refrigerations, ..

If you are skeptical of my skepticism about 'hydrogen', just ask yourself:
Do catalysts violate conservation of energy?

You may find this informative:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrhenius_equation

II read they liberated "1 kg of hydrogen". Does anyone grasp how much volume that is at STP? It would take over a house and before it mixes with Oxygen and blows up, reverting mostly to H2O and some H2O2.

I will not discuss the E-cat, cold fusion, scams and delusions here.

[OKIsItJustMe]

13. Please go back and reread the item I linked to

https://www.rmit.edu.au/news/all-news/2023/feb/hydrogen-seawater

…

“Our process not only omits carbon dioxide, but also has no chlorine production.”

The new approach devised by a team in the multidisciplinary Materials for Clean Energy and Environment (MC2E) research group at RMIT uses a special type of catalyst developed to work specifically with seawater.

The study, with PhD candidate Suraj Loomba, focused on producing highly efficient, stable catalysts that can be manufactured cost-effectively.

“These new catalysts take very little energy to run and could be used at room temperature,” Mahmood said.

…

For the actual (Open Access) study, see here: https://doi.org/10.1002/smll.202207310

Nitrogen-Doped Porous Nickel Molybdenum Phosphide Sheets for Efficient Seawater Splitting

Suraj Loomba, Muhammad Waqas Khan, Muhammad Haris, Seyed Mahdi Mousavi, Ali Zavabeti, Kai Xu, Anton Tadich, Lars Thomsen, Christopher F. McConville, Yongxiang Li, Sumeet Walia, Nasir Mahmood

First published: 08 February 2023

Abstract
Hydrogen is emerging as an alternative clean fuel; however, its dependency on freshwater will be a threat to a sustainable environment. Seawater, an unlimited source, can be an alternative, but its salt-rich nature causes corrosion and introduces several competing reactions, hindering its use. To overcome these, a unique catalyst composed of porous sheets of nitrogen-doped NiMo₃P (N-NiMo₃P) having a sheet size of several microns is designed. The presence of large homogenous pores in the basal plane of these sheets makes them catalytically more active and ensures faster mass transfer. The introduction of N and Ni into MoP significantly tunes the electronic density of Mo, surface chemistry, and metal-non-metal bond lengths, optimizing surface energies, creating new active sites, and increasing electrical conductivity. The presence of metal-nitrogen bonds and surface polyanions increases the stability and improves anti-corrosive properties against chlorine chemistry. Ultimately, the N-NiMo₃P sheets show remarkable performance as it only requires overpotentials of 23 and 35 mV for hydrogen evolution reaction, and it catalyzes full water splitting at 1.52 and 1.55 V to achieve 10 mA cm⁻⁻² in 1 m KOH and seawater, respectively. Hence, structural and compositional control can make catalysts effective in realizing low-cost hydrogen directly from seawater.

…

[kiri]

14. do you think a catalyst can overcome the law of conservation of mass and energy?

Oh, I read it carefully from the first. I pondered what
“Our process not only omits carbon dioxide, but also has no chlorine production.” means. Is this a typo for "emits"? "Emits NO CO2"?
Cl production? Well, ocean water contains lots of chlorine, mainly in the form of the chloride ion. You don't have to "produce" it--it's already there. Do the authors mean "release free chlorine Cl2 gas"?

Now, the confusing demo prominently shows the magnesium electrode, which is vital, apparently. BUT in the paper's study, https://doi.org/10.1002/smll.202207310
Nitrogen-Doped Porous Nickel Molybdenum Phosphide Sheets for Efficient Seawater Splitting
-----not Mg, but NiMoP 'sheets". Quelle difference! Even w/o the nitrogen doping.

Where is this demo? 1½ yrs ago...I am glad they are keeping the grant money flowing.

I ask again, do you think a catalyst can overcome the law of conservation of mass and energy?

There are only 92 'natural' elements----all the Universe is made from them (worry not about the Trans-U metals). There is no element at. no. 46½

I am not against science, new discoveries, but I am against exaggerated and misleading claims, fooling people and people fooling themselves with magical thinking.

Happy 4th.

[OKIsItJustMe]

15. Catalysts do not violate physical laws. They do increase efficiencies.

Clearly these people are idiots and frauds. The data in their paper is obviously fabricated. How they got it published at all is beyond me.
(Note obligatory tag.)

[lapfog_1]

3. green hydrogen is not a fuel source

it is an energy carrier. The source is that large fusion reactor millions of miles away.

If you think about it... the fuel for all "dirty" forms of energy is also the same large fusion reactor. The difference is the process and the time scale by which either Hydrogen gas or fossil fuel is made and stored. Green hydrogen is made from the sunlight that falls on us today. Fossil fuels capture that same sunlight, only over a period of millions of years, and ends up in the form of complex hydrocarbons that we burn, releasing carbon dioxide as a by-product, which we find very inconvenient. When we burn pure hydrogen, we end up with water again.

Storing and using hydrocarbons ( coal, oil, natural gas ) is much easier than storing pure hydrogen ( it tends to escape and burning it can be dangerous ). Not to mention energy density is much better with hydrocarbons than hydrogen ( unless you compress it as a gas or find another way to make a fuel out of Hydrogen ).

[OKIsItJustMe]

6. Why is it that nobody ever waves their hand to say, "Batteries are not a fuel source!"

Hydrogen, however, is a fuel. You can burn it in an ICE, or a turbine or use it in a "fuel cell.”

It seems, it may also be a fuel source! But, what do those idiots at the USGS know. Right?

[lapfog_1]

8. I always point out that batteries are not a fuel source when it seems appropriate

Hydrogen, as a free gas, is a fuel source... unfortunately it doesn't appear on the earth in large quantities as a free gas... And when it does, it tends to escape. Vast quantities are locked up as water, both salted and non-salted.

what the article in the OP references using WATER as a fuel source because it contains Hydrogen. But the energy that is required to break the H2 and O bond is relatively large... electrolysis is one method to break the bond. Therefore whatever is used to break the bond is the fuel source.

Strictly speaking, almost all stored energy originates from the sun, either over a period of a growth season ( wood for example ) or over centuries ( or much longer ) in the form of fossil fuels ( which is WHY they are called fossil fuels ). The major exception to this is nuclear fuels.

[OKIsItJustMe]

9. Please read the USGS item I linked to

Everything you think you know about hydrogen may be wrong.

https://www.usgs.gov/news/featured-story/potential-geologic-hydrogen-next-generation-energy

…

“Using a conservative range of input values, the model predicts a mean volume of hydrogen that could supply the projected global hydrogen demand for thousands of years,” Ellis said.

However, he quickly cautions, “We have to be very careful in interpreting this number, though. Based on what we know about the distribution of petroleum and other gases in the subsurface, most of this hydrogen is probably inaccessible."

In other words, hydrogen supplies are too deeply buried, or too far offshore, or in accumulations that are too small, making it highly unlikely they could ever be economically recovered.

The good news is, if even a small fraction of this estimated volume could be recovered, there would likely be enough hydrogen across all the global deposits to last for hundreds of years. Ellis is convinced that the amount of hydrogen in the Earth’s interior could potentially constitute a primary energy resource.

…

[lapfog_1]

10. yes, a long term possible source of free hydrogen.

one that, to date, we have no technology to reach.


---
However, he quickly cautions, We have to be very careful in interpreting this number, though. Based on what we know about the distribution of petroleum and other gases in the subsurface, most of this hydrogen is probably inaccessible.

In other words, hydrogen supplies are too deeply buried, or too far offshore, or in accumulations that are too small, making it highly unlikely they could ever be economically recovered.

[OKIsItJustMe]

11. Pick your cherries carefully.

https://www.usgs.gov/news/featured-story/potential-geologic-hydrogen-next-generation-energy

…

Exploring for and Producing Hydrogen

Exploration for geologic hydrogen resources is likely to employ many of the same strategies and technologies that are currently used in petroleum exploration, with some added elements taken from mineral and geothermal resource exploration. Because of the potential for hydrogen to cause steel to become brittle, production of hydrogen trapped in reservoirs will require slightly different materials. Otherwise, the same drilling and completion equipment that is currently in use for natural gas development can be used.

However, unlike natural gas fields, some of the gas in natural hydrogen fields may be renewable given the rapid rate of hydrogen generation via water reduction. Moreover, some researchers have proposed that reservoirs, traps and seals may not even be necessary to produce geologic hydrogen. They suggest that we might be able to tap into rocks that are generating hydrogen, or have hydrogen migrating through them, and produce the hydrogen gas as it is being generated. Other scientists go even further and propose that hot water could be injected into iron-rich rocks that are not currently generating hydrogen in order to stimulate generation, somewhat similar to enhanced geothermal energy production.

“If you add up the amount of hydrogen we think might be trapped in reservoirs, plus the amount that might be produced directly as it is generated, and the amount that could be made through stimulation, you get a very large potential resource”, Ellis said.

…

Hey, I get it. This contradicts what we have all “known” about hydrogen for… well… as long as I can remember.

https://www.science.org/content/article/hidden-hydrogen-earth-may-hold-vast-stores-renewable-carbon-free-fuel

…

“When I first heard about it, I thought it was crazy,” says Emily Yedinak, a materials scientist who devoted a fellowship at the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) to drumming up interest in natural hydrogen. “The more that I read, the more I started to realize, wow, the science behind how hydrogen is produced is sound … I was kind of like, ‘Why is no one talking about this?’”

…

Critically, natural hydrogen may be not only clean, but also renewable. It takes millions of years for buried and compressed organic deposits to turn into oil and gas. By contrast, natural hydrogen is always being made afresh, when underground water reacts with iron minerals at elevated temperatures and pressures. In the decade since boreholes began to tap hydrogen in Mali, flows have not diminished, says Prinzhofer, who has consulted on the project. “Hydrogen appears, almost everywhere, as a renewable source of energy, not a fossil one,” he says.

…

Yet some scientists have become true believers. Eric Gaucher, a geochemist at the University of Bern, left a career at French oil giant Total because it wasn’t moving fast enough on hydrogen. He believes the Mali discovery might end up in the history books alongside one that happened 163 years ago in Titusville, Pennsylvania. At the time, the world knew about seeps of oil in places such as Iraq and California but was blind to the vast deposits that lay underground. Then on 27 August 1859, a nearly bankrupt prospector named Edwin Drake, working in Titusville with a steam engine and cast-iron drill pipes, struck black gold at a depth of 21 meters, and began collecting it in a bathtub. Before long, U.S. companies were harvesting millions of bathtubs of oil every day.

“I am thinking we are not very far from that with hydrogen,” Gaucher says. “We have the concept, we have the tools, the geology. … We only need people able to invest.”

…

[OKIsItJustMe]

5. NREL Analysis Shows Midwestern Electrofuels Could Become Energy Superheroes

https://www.energy.gov/eere/bioenergy/articles/nrel-analysis-shows-midwestern-electrofuels-could-become-energy-superheroes

NREL Analysis Shows Midwestern Electrofuels Could Become Energy Superheroes

OCTOBER 18, 2023

More ethanol, fewer emissions, land with multiple purposes—there are several advantages of using renewable electricity to increase the carbon efficiency of biorefineries.

…