QuantumSphere speaks of homemade hydrogen

We'll be honest, we're not getting ourselves all riled up about this just yet -- after all, it's not like QuantumSphere is the first (nor the last) company to teeter on announcing a legitimate "solution" to ditching gasoline. Nevertheless, said startup has reportedly figured out a way to "make hydrogen at home from distilled water and ultimately bring the cost of hydrogen fuel cells in line with that of fossil fuels." More specifically, the outfit claims to have "perfected the manufacture of highly reactive catalytic nanoparticle coatings that could up the efficiency of electrolysis, the technique that generates hydrogen from water." Unbelievable though that may sound, it's still looking to unveil a battery using its own technology later this year, so we'll just wait and see what becomes of that initiative before bidding gas stations adieu for good.

[Via Autoblog, thanks Sean]

[Ricardo @ Mar 7th 2008 5:21PM]

Most cars in Brazil run on ethanol, which is cheaper, more powerful, and lot cleaner than gasoline, and last but definately not least, it's renewable.

That's pretty big for an "undeveloped" country. The alternative is already here, and has been for a long time now. Whoever still uses gas does so for political reasons only.

[granny down east @ Mar 7th 2008 5:26PM]

Ethanol production from corn is seen as having long term consequences for land use and food availability. Whether or not this is so will have to be evaluated twenty or thirty years from now.

Now, if hydrogen can be extracted from sea water cheaply, I'm in business.

[Chris @ Mar 7th 2008 5:47PM]

Also, ethanol itself does not have the explosive capacity to power a vehicle. Ethanol fuels actually are mixed with somewhere in the range of 15% gasoline, which provides the oomph for the combustion. So although it may be an alternative, its not a replacement.

[Bill @ Mar 7th 2008 6:09PM]

Wrong Wrong and Wrong. Ethanol has nowhere near the energy per gallon of gasoline, and diesel has 30 more energy per unit than gas. People who fill their tanks with 85 ethanol and 15 gas are very unpleasantly surprised to watch their mileage drop in half. So you pay a bit less for ethanol at the pump, and get FAR LESS mpg compared to 100 percent gas.

And the brainiacs in DC Tax you to hand money to subsidize ethanol; more corn goes to fuel production, and your monthly food bill for everything from tortillas to beef goes up. That is your geniuses in DC; Taxing you three ways from Sunday to hand out billions for ethanol subsidies, and when you add in the water it uses, fertilizer etc., ethanol is an epic boondoggle.

Brazil makes ethanol from sugar cane. Much higher energy yield from sugar than from the starches in corn. Ethanol is a typical boondoggle non-solution; a way for the politicos to appear to ‘do something’ while handing out BILLIONS in new corporate welfare and yet not upsetting the apple cart of the oil majors.

I’m curious, does anyone actually read books anymore, or are you all to busy watching America’s next top model idol loser?

[rcappo @ Mar 7th 2008 6:10PM]

You might want to talk to these people about 100% ethanol powering their cars. At the Indy 500 last year, they were moving pretty fast.

www.indycar.com/tech/ethanol.php

[james @ Mar 7th 2008 6:13PM]

BS. Ethanol has a lower energy density than gasoline, but not drastically so, and the octane rating is very high compared to gasoline. Engines can and do run fine from pure ethanol, many race cars do, and modern flex fuel passenger cars can burn E85 which is 85% ethanol 15% gasoline.

Now the problem is producing enough ethanol in an economical manner. Converting surplus grain is good, that potential fuel would otherwise be wasted, but growing food crops specifically to produce fuel is not efficient, there's debate whether it actually produces any net energy once you factor in petroleum based fertilizers and fuel burned by the farm equipment. The technology is good, it has uses, but expecting it to solve our energy needs is wishful thinking. It's a small piece of the puzzle.

[Ricardo @ Mar 7th 2008 6:53PM]

Well, here most people nowadays use E100 fuel, but the cars also accept anything down to 100% gas.

Yes, ethanol is 30% less effective than gas, but it's also 40-50% cheaper and like I said it's a lot cleaner, and makes the car slightly more powerful (1 to 2 more HP).

And yes, it's extracted from sugar cane, but there are researches being done to extract it from a kind of grass that will be much more efficient from the environment point of view.

But no one is starving here because of our ethanol plants. The important thing is that we produce both gas and ethanol, and cars accept any mixture between those two, so we have a choice.

Cars would be a lot more effective though if they were made to run only on ethanol, but for economical reasons (lack of choice would make price raise) they chose to make cars compatible with gas too.

[Sam Winter @ Mar 8th 2008 12:11AM]

@Ricardo 1st and 2nd post

As others mentioned, Ethanol is a disaster for the world when made inappropriately. Washington DC is giving billions of American's tax dollars in subsidies to large agro businesses making ethanol from corn crops. This in turn has not only caused a tripling of food corn prices, but has caused more and more agriculture growers to move to corn creating shortages in other food crops. A prominent United Nations Food Aid official has called the use of corn ethanol a CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY! It is causing a HUGE burden on the worlds poor and the aid organizations trying to feed them from the outlandish prices of corn caused by using it as a fuel. This is a terrible idea, and Bush and his cronies should be tried at the Hague for promoting such nonsense.

Besides the humanitarian problems, corn ethanol is just plain inefficient and expensive to produce.
The only reason Ethanol it works in Brazil is because they produce it from sugar cane, which is a much more efficient and cheaper process, and uses something that is not a basic food staple of the world.

The only way ethanol gets anywhere close to reasonable is when they are able to produce it out of agricultural waste, which will mostly be cellulose at the molecular level. There are thousands of scientists researching the use of bacterial enzymes for breaking down cellulose and producing ethanol, but there is much work to be done. In the meantime, SHAME ON ANYONE supporting the massive subsidization of corn ethanol! It's totally irresponsible and immoral. Funny how most of the supporters are conservative republican "moral majority" assholes...

[Ken @ Mar 7th 2008 5:22PM]

I hope people don't start thinking that this is some sort of free energy, perpetual motion device. This is just a catalyst. Input energy would still be required and so will all the complexities of hydrogen storage.

[Kevin @ Mar 8th 2008 10:09AM]

Maybe a generic form of Nafion (proton exchange membrane)? That'd be cool. But undercut DuPont, they'll probably get eaten by DuPont before they market. :(

[Jason @ Mar 10th 2008 4:54AM]

This is about removing or at least reducing the complexities of hydrogen storage. the article speaks of moving the electrolysis process to the inside of the car. If you do this you have no storage aside from the water it comes from since hydrogen would be immediately used. As for energy input, this technology has greatly increased the efficiency of the electrolyser (which is one of the biggest problem of electrolysis) to 85 percent. Promises of 96 percent in coming years. The only problems i see are those common to nanoparticles themselves and the fact that you have to use distilled water at this point.

[Ken @ Mar 7th 2008 5:25PM]

ethanol isnt nearly as efficient as gasoline let alone diesel. The resources required to replace the US's energy use are far beyond what ethanol could ever supply. Besides, there isn't ONE solution. Energy diversity is required to maintain adequate supply and low prices.

[ReggieXuk @ Mar 7th 2008 5:25PM]

Cant wait for news on the battery

[J L @ Mar 7th 2008 6:11PM]

There *is* a way to make Hydrogen with Aluminum coated with Gallium... I wouldn't be that shocked if that's what this is...

[k @ Mar 7th 2008 6:11PM]

you can already do this with some salt water, a battery, two elecrodes and 2 water bottles or something to catch the gas (O2 and H2) in as it is released from the water

[ts @ Mar 7th 2008 7:41PM]

And as they taught us at school when we were children, the same energy you put to separate hydrogen from oxygen with the two electrodes, you get when you burn the hydrogen in your car. So in some way you still need a power plant, it's not that the hydrogen in the sea is available energy.

[Jason @ Mar 10th 2008 4:54AM]

K: most people are aware. This is about increasing efficiency to the likes of gasoline. ts: gasoline in your car doesnt require a power plant, so does that mean the sea of gasoline underground is too different? IDK maybe it is maybe it isnt.

[RW @ Mar 7th 2008 6:27PM]

Biodiesel from algae is, to me anyway, the most promising alternative fuel. It works with existing infrastructure and you can hook up algae farms to coal fired power plants to remove the carbon dioxide and instead use it to power automobiles. We could completely remove our dependence on foreign oil in this manner.

Another problem we run into is the price of energy. If we can get the price of electricity down to where it doesn't matter, then home hydrogen processing is appealing. But we have to get over our collective hatred of clean, safe, reliable nuclear energy for that to happen. I suppose once everybody's home is powered by several alternative energy sources this could be a possibility as well.

[Josh @ Mar 7th 2008 7:28PM]

I never figured out why people have hated nuclear energy so much lately, sure Chernobyl and 3 mile island were bad but nuclear energy has really gotten a ton safer with modern technology and many many fail safes built in compared to even 10 or 20 years ago.

I can't wait to see how hydrogen powered cars compare to gasoline powered cars in the future when hydrogen is feasibly and reliably on the market. An m3 powered by hydrogen... tasty.

[bi0hazard @ Mar 7th 2008 8:09PM]

imagine having cars with mini nuclear reactors. gives a whole new meaning to the word "car bomb"

[Dan Davis @ Mar 7th 2008 8:38PM]

@Josh

I'm with you... more nuclear power plants = cheaper electricity = more advanced electric cars?

[BigD145 @ Mar 8th 2008 12:42AM]

More nuclear power means more nuclear waste that has to stay above ground and in unsecured locations for 10-15 years MINIMUM. Even after you get the opportunity to bury it, you have to keep track of it for the next few billion years. During that entire time it can be refined for use in weapons. Nobody has the facilities to repurpose waste on a large commercial scale.

[RW @ Mar 8th 2008 12:28PM]

Yes, actually they do, new reactor designs are coming out to use old nuclear waste to generate electricity, so we're good.

[Lizard God @ Mar 7th 2008 6:41PM]

Ethanol has been proven to be more expensive and much more dangerous to the environment than gasoline. Back in the 70's it was better, but no longer. Let's face it, Alcohol is bad for us and it's bad for the earth.

[WorldCTZen @ Mar 7th 2008 9:01PM]

First, the article is about H+ generation for fuel Cells, not Ethanol. If this is legit, it's exactly the kind of breakthrough necessary to make Fuel Cell technology, and eventually production vehicles, economically feasible.
Ethanol is, at best, a stop-gap fuel. Regardless of its effects on other food crops, displacement of arable land, cellulosic fermentation, relative cost vs petrol, or any other argument you can make.. at the end of the day YOU'RE STILL BURNING HYDROCARBONS. This is the very root of global warming. All Ethanol will do is switch us from a finite supply of hydrocarbons, to a renewable supply of hydrocarbons. Good for stretching the existing fuel economy out until we can find an actual replacement. Bad for continuing to add to global warming.

[granny down east @ Mar 7th 2008 9:47PM]

Thanks for that, worldCTZen, what I was trying to get across in brief.
Good show.
On to wind power!!

[Nathan L @ Mar 8th 2008 7:58AM]

"at the end of the day YOU'RE STILL BURNING HYDROCARBONS."

That isnt entirely the whole picture. While hydrocarbons are being burned, the CO2 that is released is CO2 that was consumed by whatever plant has been fermented (which is typically a fast growth, short lived plant). No 'new' (or at least minimal) CO2 is introduced into the system.

Personally I find the whole fuel displacing food crops as the main issue with ethanol. If they can find a way to produce ethanol from agricultural waste (of which there is a LOT), I would be less wary of ethanol as a fuel.

[Bill @ Mar 8th 2008 11:03AM]

Room-temperature electrolysis (what you're stuck with at home or onboard you vehicle) isn't very efficient, maybe 50%.

These guys are saying they can boost that to 85%.

Let an indepenent lab verify their claims, then I'll believe them.

[Earl @ Mar 8th 2008 1:26PM]

Funny how the most abundant element in the universe has been so hard to extract from nature in a cheap/efficient manner.
I am all for Hydrogen based energy. We also need to dump a ton of money into sustainable nuclear fusion, no more fission reactors.

[Lewis Cramer @ Mar 9th 2008 7:16PM]

If you check the Penn State website for MFC I do belive you might see the future.

[Bill @ Mar 9th 2008 8:01PM]

OK here is the real future. Read about this a year ago and had to search it up...but how about burning iron? Or Aluminum? or Boron? No bad emissions, and the waste can be collected and re-used. More powerful than gas, and iron and aluminum is all round us. . . just gotta get it down to some particular nano size...

http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/media/7/4/climatechange_gerry_wolff.pdf

http://www.nanovalley.us/news/57.html

[Lewis Cramer @ Mar 10th 2008 7:00AM]

Just check out that web site and microbialfuelcell.org and see what is being developed.

[W. Park @ Mar 10th 2008 5:49PM]

If these guys are for real, they should hole up and communicate to their patent attorneys via anonymous email because too many powerful interests are tied up with preserving the status quo. How much would this technology be worth to the powers and corporations that be, to bury it (and the discoverers), and to bring it out when the profit curve on oil is done? If these people are still around, it's not a threat to anyone.

Fact is, if a miracle cure to the energy crunch is found, it should be open sourced and the money made off the delivery and distribution system. Basic problem not addressed -too many people. Would make much more sense to be managed by robot overlords...

my $0.02