Engineers' magnesium solution to hydrogen storage debacle

According to ferret.com.au, A team of Australian scientists have developed a solid state hydrogen storage technology that is safer, lower cost, and stores a higher density of hydrogen than the gaseous and liquid systems presently used in industry.

It is claimed that the magnesium alloy developed by Arne Dahle and Kazuhiro Nogita from Queensland University’s School of Engineering has seven times the storage density of a standard hydrogen pressure cylinder.

“Any application that uses hydrogen is coming across this issue of hydrogen storage, because with pressurised gas or liquid you just don’t store enough hydrogen safely,” says CEO, Jeffrey Ng of a new company called Hydrexia that has been established to realise the commercial potential of the technology. Ng defined four key things that people look for when it comes to hydrogen storage: safety, hydrogen storage density, low cost and manufacturability. On all of these fronts, Ng says Dahle and Nogita’s new magnesium alloy performs better than the two most common storage methods to date.

The material Dahle and Nogita have discovered is a hydride. Under the right pressure and temperature conditions, the hydrogen binds into the nano-structure of a material. Under different conditions of temperature and pressure, the process is reversible with hydrogen released and the material returning to its original state.

Every kilogram of Hydrexia’s magnesium can store about 75g of hydrogen, which according to Ng, is about seven times the storage density of a standard pressure cylinder.

The Hydrexia material can be produced by straight casting methods, rather than requiring the energy intensive and dangerous process of high-energy ball milling. Hydrexia has just built its first prototype system for on-site industrial hydrogen storage and is talking to a number of commercialisation partners.

Comments

[Paul Dietz]

Magnesium hydride has been known for a long time. As I understand it, the problem with using it for hydrogen storage is the temperature needed to release the hydrogen is fairly high, as is the energy released when the hydrogen is absorbed.

[Jason]

It's worth noting that the metal hydride they've chosen gets 7.5% storage by mass, which is indeed substantially better than the liquid or gaseous tank systems in existance today. However...

I thought we had (or at least, Energy Conversion Devices had) nickel metal hydride systems that had achieves higher storage mass ratios than this already (despite it being a denser element).

I suppose the advantage Magnesium has is that it's more abundant.

[Smith]

It's been done:

http://www.switch2hydrogen.com/

[Dave]

With all the talk about grain based fuels, hydrogen storage issues, and hybrid cars, it seems to me that folks have forgotten the basic rule….. KISS (keep it simple stupid).

Why not just power our cars with good ole fashioned compressed air? Don’t think it will work? Then you had better think again.

http://www.theaircar.com/

http://auto.howstuffworks.com/air-car.htm

The French seem to be way ahead of the US in their thinking. The French based company Zero Pollution Motors will soon release their e-Volution vehicle, which is powered by a two-cylinder, compressed-air engine. That’s right, it runs on AIR! This vehicle is truly a ZERO emissions vehicle!

Ordinary compressed air is stored in carbon or glass fiber tanks at 4,351 (PSI). The air is fed through an injector to the engine where it pushes down the pistons and makes the crankshaft go around. The e.Volution will be able to travel about 124 miles before being refueled with compressed air. At a top speed of 60 mph! Hum. Kind of makes you wonder where everyone else’s head has been.

Because there is no combustion, much of the engine can be made of plastic, a major weight saving feature!

The exhaust (if you want to call it that) air comes out so cold that it can actually be re-routed into the passenger area as air conditioning! TOO COOL!

Nuff said....

[Rich R]

Where does the energy come from to compress the air?

Electric cars - same question. Right now the RR companies are challenged to haul enough coal to our coal burning electrical generation stations. This is no solution at all.

The solution has to be total or it's just a shifting of the problem.

If I take 3 solar panels, some marine gell pack batteries, a hydrogen/oxygen electrolyzer, a hydrogen purifier, and chunk of this cast material (when the hydrogen release issues have been worked out), I can make enough hydrogen for free on my roof to never have to pay for fuel again. Running from the batteries the electrolyzers could run 24-7 (I did the math). My car would be powered by sunlight and ....water. It's emission - water. (My roof would produce oxygen as a by product, as does a tree). The amount of water used is minimal.

Using another chunk of this cast material for my gas tank, I can quickly convert an internal combustion engine to hydrogen (I currently run an old GMC straight six on propane with only a carburator change).

No storage issues - greatly reduced distribution network requirements - ranges of 150 miles round trip. Power provided solely by sunlight and water. No emissions except water and oxygen. Already done that? Where?

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[Petroleum Chemicals]

I think this is a great post. One thing that I find the most helpful is number five. Sometimes when I write, I just let the flow of the words and information come out so much that I loose the purpose. It’s only after editing when I realize what I’ve done. There’s defiantly a lot of great tips here I’m going to try to be more aware of.