This has nothing directly to do with fuel cells or producing hydrogen.
Quit your whining and leave your beef with thermodynamics aside.
The materials in question are called metal hydrides and I've been researching them for the past 2.5 years. They store substantial amounts of hydrogen in terms of volume but you must the substantial amount of weight this storage system adds.
For instance, magnesium (hydride) has a storage capacity of 7.6%. In other words, 100 kg of magnesium will store about 7.6 kg of hydrogen at full capacity. Anywhere between 3-7 kg of hydrogen is considered to store energy equivalent to a typical gas tank. To make things worse, Mg hydride for many reasons isn't suitable for cars. In this case we use LaNi5 with storage of capacity of ~1.5%
So as opposed to 60 lbs of fuel sitting in the back of your car, consider over 450 kg of metal powder sitting in the back of your car.
I'm with Colin Chapman here, we take away weight whenever possible, not add it.
Oh, any the reason this article is on "Platinum Today" is that platinum is used as a catalyst to dissociate hydrogen molecules for both fuel cells and metal hydride research.
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Quit your whining and leave your beef with thermodynamics aside.
The materials in question are called metal hydrides and I've been researching them for the past 2.5 years. They store substantial amounts of hydrogen in terms of volume but you must the substantial amount of weight this storage system adds.
For instance, magnesium (hydride) has a storage capacity of 7.6%. In other words, 100 kg of magnesium will store about 7.6 kg of hydrogen at full capacity. Anywhere between 3-7 kg of hydrogen is considered to store energy equivalent to a typical gas tank. To make things worse, Mg hydride for many reasons isn't suitable for cars. In this case we use LaNi5 with storage of capacity of ~1.5%
So as opposed to 60 lbs of fuel sitting in the back of your car, consider over 450 kg of metal powder sitting in the back of your car.
I'm with Colin Chapman here, we take away weight whenever possible, not add it.
Oh, any the reason this article is on "Platinum Today" is that platinum is used as a catalyst to dissociate hydrogen molecules for both fuel cells and metal hydride research.