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The buckyball, seen here, consists of 60 carbon atoms. It can store many atoms inside this sphere, including hydrogen.  (Source: Psyclops.com)
The solution to storing hydrogen efficiently may be as simple as little ball-shaped carbon molecules

It seems these days that carbon nanotubes and carbon nanowires are getting all the attention.  However, people should not neglect another very promising and unique carbon molecule-- the buckyball.  Buckyballs, named after Buckminster Fuller, contain 60 carbon atoms.  It is the smallest member of a class of carbon ball-shaped molecules known as fullerenes, which can contain as many as 2,000 atoms.

Now new research from Rice University indicates that carbon buckyballs can be used to store hydrogen at densities that rival those of the center of Jupiter.  Hydrogen storage is a major challenge to the alternative energy industry.  While hydrogen fuel cells and hydrogen combustion research are oft lauded as a possible key to independence from fossil fuel reliance, difficulties in hydrogen storage have held these technologies back from achieving economic feasibility.  While hydrogen is incredibly light, in order for it to be economically competitive with gasoline in automobiles in terms of range per fill-up, it would need to be stored at densities greater than that of liquid hydrogen, a lofty challenge.

The new research, which will be published in the March 2008 cover of the American Chemical Society's journal Nano Letters, was funded in part by over a billion dollars in grant money the U.S. Department of Energy has put aside for hydrogen storage research, as well as the office of Naval research.  Lead researcher Boris Yakobson, professor of mechanical engineering and materials science at Rice, is thrilled with the results.  He states, "Based on our calculations, it appears that some buckyballs are capable of holding volumes of hydrogen so dense as to be almost metallic.  It appears they can hold about 8 percent of their weight in hydrogen at room temperature, which is considerably better than the federal target of 6 percent."

Yakobson admits that the idea of storing hydrogen inside a molecular container is not a new one.  Indeed, it was known in the past, he commented, that buckyballs could contain hydrogen.  However, Yakobsen and former postdoctoral researchers Olga Pupysheva and Amir Farajian's new research has offered the first method of calculating precisely how much hydrogen the little balls could store beforing breaking.

It is rather appropriate that the research should occur at Rice as the buckyball was first discovered at Rice over 20 years ago.  Yakobson explains how the little balls can store so much hydrogen, stating, "Bonds between carbon atoms are among the strongest chemical bonds in nature.  These bonds are what make diamond the hardest known substance, and our research showed that it takes an enormous amount of internal pressure to deform and break the carbon-carbon bonds in a fullerene."

The new method for storage determination utilizes an advanced computer model.  The model measures the strength of the bonds between the carbon atoms in the buckyball as hydrogen atoms are added.  The model is especially optimal as it can be scaled to fullerenes of any size.  It not only shows how much hydrogen can be stored, but also simulates how the buckyballs break when their maximum storage capacity is exceeded.

Yakobson says hydrogen-filled buckyballs could theoretically be stored as a powder.  He states, "They will likely assemble into weak molecular crystals or form a thin powder.  They might find use in their whole form or be punctured under certain conditions to release pure hydrogen for fuel cells or other types of engines."

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Heh
By pauldovi on 3/23/2008 8:24:04 PM , Rating: 3
Buckyballs are not easy to make....

As a speaker at a SAE conference said, "Hydrogen is the fuel of the future, and it will always be the fuel of the future."

Hydrogen takes way to much energy to accumulate in useful form.




RE: Heh
By SiliconAddict on 3/23/2008 9:59:02 PM , Rating: 4
At least with current tech. Personally if we put as much effort into research and development as we did in the 1960's with the space program I'm certain we could do some pretty damn amazing stuff. The problem is money which seems to be going into some black hole in the Middle East area of the world....Money enters but it can never escape.


RE: Heh
By semo on 3/24/2008 6:55:55 AM , Rating: 4
quote:
if we put as much effort into research and development as we did in the 1960's with the space program
or as we* have done over the last century in oil and internal combustion engines

*we - us, globally


RE: Heh
By bjacobson on 3/24/2008 1:05:56 PM , Rating: 2
Why? If WE make it then we can sell it to others. Why wouldn't you want that?


RE: Heh
By UNCjigga on 3/25/2008 12:53:25 PM , Rating: 2
I for one look forward to detergent boxes full of hydrogen fuel, and a handy plastic scoop to refill my car. It'll be like putting a load in the washing machine and adding the soap.

That said, I do anticipate powder vs. liquid fuel debates in the future.


RE: Heh
By feelingshorter on 3/23/2008 10:31:45 PM , Rating: 5
Yeah, lets not waste any more money in this research. Instead, lets just give up and be pessimistic. Should we? Same thing with any sort of discovery isn't it? Takes time/money. If we had given up on every hard problem humanity ran across from space travel to medicine, we would we cavemen still.


RE: Heh
By MadMaster on 3/23/08, Rating: -1
RE: Heh
By ZeroGuardian on 3/24/08, Rating: -1
RE: Heh
By mahax on 3/24/2008 6:42:12 AM , Rating: 5
Producing hydrogen takes energy too, alot of it. You could use those coal and gas plants to produce hydrogen as well. I know there are alternative technologies emerging for cleaner production of hydrogen, but then again, clean methods for producing electrical energy exists already.

I personally believe hydrogen has an uphill battle against existing tech like batteries which do evolve just as fast.

Since there are no apparent dead ends for battery tech, it's difficult to say which will prevail at the end.


RE: Heh
By FITCamaro on 3/24/2008 8:35:37 AM , Rating: 3
Yes but hydrogen benefits in a lot of ways over batteries.

1) It doesn't wear out over time. It merely has to be replaced as its used. Electric cars will never be able to be used for long road trips unless we can recharge a battery to its full charge in minutes without losing capacity over time.

2) It's possible to produce hydrogen through natural means using bacteria as has been shown. We only need to do more research into mass production and how to make it efficiently.

3) It can potentially use the same method of distribution as gasoline with some modifications.

4) It's perfectly clean compared to batteries which contain many toxic chemicals and eventually wear out which then have to be largely thrown away.


RE: Heh
By randomly on 3/24/2008 11:20:10 AM , Rating: 4
If you actually look into the actual technical details of Hydrogen and fuel cells it does not look very promising. Although it all sounds good on the surface it dies the death of a thousand cuts when you actually try to implement it.
1) The hydrogen doesn't wear out, but the fuel cells do. In fact fuel cell longevity is a huge problem. The expensive catalysts are easily poisoned by a number of contaminants in the hydrogen supply or especially in the air supply. There are a number of other cell degradation problems as well.
2) It's possible to produce hydrogen from all kinds of sources, but none are very efficient except for reforming natural gas (80%). In all cases you are better off producing electricity and using that directly. Hydrogen fuel cells are less than half the well to wheel efficiency of batteries.
3) There is almost no commonality between the gasoline distribution system and hydrogen distribution. You have to transport the fuel differently, store it differently, pump it differently. Every time you transfer it you incur pumping energy costs. You cannot even use existing pipelines because the hydrogen embrittles the metal causing it to fail under pressure.
4) It is no cleaner than batteries in any way, and worse from the standpoint that you must generate more than twice as much energy for the same end result as with batteries. The only currently viable large scale source of hydrogen is petroleum, so you actually generate much more pollution overall than using electric power generation and batteries.
Batteries would be recycled anyway, since the materials in them have substantial value and there would be considerable economic incentive to do so, regardless of the pollution aspects.

Any time you use electrolysis to generate hydrogen you are throwing away more than half your available energy, no matter what the source of electricity, solar, wind, whatever, you are much better off using the electricity directly than wasting it on hydrogen production. Electricity is also vastly much easier to distribute.

As to the bucky ball hydrogen storage there is one huge Caveat. How much energy does it take to extract the hydrogen back out? The very nature of hydrogen adsorbing materials is that they glom onto the hydrogen aggressively. The more they are able to store, the tighter they tend to hold on to their hydrogen. The tighter they hold on, the more energy it takes to get the hydrogen back out. Compressed Hydrogen storage is still the most efficient system and it has about a 12% energy storage cost.

The well to wheels efficiency of current Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles are slightly LESS efficient than a stock Prius hybrid you can buy off the show room floor today and with comparable pollution impact. Plus you have the expensive nightmare of transporting, storing, and transferring the hydrogen.


RE: Heh
By FITCamaro on 3/24/2008 12:02:32 PM , Rating: 1
1) Fuel cells can be and are being made better. Battery technology has been largely stagnant for the past 50 years except for lithium ion. And there's downsides to it vs. NiCad.

2) Don't discount genetic engineering to provide the solution. There's already bacteria that release hydrogen when they consume plant matter. We can engineer even better versions of it. It won't be cheap, but neither is oil at the moment.

3) The distribution system is the same in that its produce, transport, pump. Electricity would require electrical outlets everywhere and new power plants to feed the vastly increased demand. Which since our society has been largely paralyzed by fear of nuclear energy, would burn fossil fuels.

4) Yes batteries use valuable materials but so do fuel cells. Both would likely be recycled as they wear out. But I believe there are far more toxic chemicals related to batteries than fuel cells. Besides, knowing corporations, it'll be cheaper to just produce new batteries and throw out the old ones in some 3rd world country.

Electric cars I think are a stop gap. It's something that could be implemented fairly quickly but is not a long term solution. Hydrogen has the potential to be that long term solution, it's just going to take time and money to develop.


RE: Heh
By MadMaster on 3/24/2008 12:51:20 PM , Rating: 4
1) You're a little behind the times on battery technology. Even lead acid battery technology has advanced (gel cell) in the last 10 years. Li-ion, Li-polymer, li-iron-phosphate are a few new technologies of the future.

2) This technology is easily 10-20 years out, if it is even possible. That's also assuming it is economical. Hell, I'm working on a project that has a 1% chance success rate and it's got a hell of a lot better chances then this happening...

3) So? Is it so difficult to run a wire out to your garage? How does that compare to spending 50k-100k on a new car and spending 5 Trillion on a new Hydrogen infrastructure, not to mention, fuel will be equivalent to $5-10/gallon and the fuel cell will need replacement every few years (an extra 40k to drop). There have been studies into the effects of electric vehicles on the grid. The basic answer is, it depends on when the vehicles are charged, off-peak or on-peak. A expert told me that since chargers are passive power, it is easy for the power company to manage. Last, renewables (solar and wind) are making great strides to provide electricity.

4) Depends on the battery technology. But you are also behind the times, batteries are already heavily recycled. Unless you are the guy who likes to do-it-yourself and you like to throw your batteries in your back yard (or pay for shipping to a 3rd world country), then the batteries will be recycled...

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0KWH/is_1_4...

Systems are already in place to recycle batteries.

Keep in mind, there is only one small difference between a hydrogen vehicle and a battery electric vehicle. The fuel cell energy storage vs. battery storage(the drive train and everything else is identical).

I fail to see how a technology that has run into multiple dead ends, is less efficient, much more expensive, requires the transportation and distribution of a difficult fuel, and will do the same exact job as batteries, is better and a long term solution compared to batteries.

Two problems have plagued batteries...

1. Capacity, large capacity is need to go long ranges. This problem is evaporating away with new battery technologies (see above post).

2. Recharging, a little known fact is you can easily fast charge lead-acid batteries. It just requires an advanced battery management systems, cooling, and the required charger. Alas, new batteries are already getting around this problem too. The problem is the charging infrastructure. There are already companies looking at upgrading the grid to use the internet/networks. An example would be you plug in your fast charger and it sends a signal through the internet to a local power plant that it's going to demand 100kW. The local power plant ramps up at the same time the charger starts pulling demand...

As many visionaries have seen, batteries (or another electrical storage medium, such as fly wheels) are the future. Hydrogen is a dead end.


RE: Heh
By masher2 (blog) on 3/24/2008 2:31:00 PM , Rating: 3
You're downplaying the disadvantages of batteries and exaggerating those of hydrogen. Batteries are always going to struggle against the disadvantage of charging time and energy/weight ratios.

I have no idea which of the two alternatives will dominate over the next century, but we're doing the right thing here. We're investigating and researching *both* avenues simultaneously. The maket will ultimately pick the best technology for the job. Who knows? It might even pick both.


RE: Heh
By MadMaster on 3/24/2008 8:13:54 PM , Rating: 2
It's not just my opinion, look at randomly's posts..

Here it explains the 4 hurdles for Hydrogen to become a reality...

http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/industr...

For electric vehicles to become a reality, there is only ONE, BATTERIES .

And look at all the business men (people who do this for profit) spending money on batteries.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/industr...

Only lone researchers and government are working on fuel cells...

As someone comments...

quote:
Simply put, Hydrogen is like the flying car.


I'd bet anybody here a thousand bucks that there will be a million electric vehicles (more than 10HP) before there are a million hydrogen vehicles.


RE: Heh
By randomly on 3/24/2008 2:31:16 PM , Rating: 4
I also used to have high hopes for fuel cells, but if you take the time to research the actual technology, limitations, and implementation problems the picture becomes very dissappointing.

1) Fuel cells will never be able to match batteries for efficiency. They will never even be able to get close. Even if you achieved maximum theoretical efficiency at every step of the energy chain. Sure fuel cells will get better, but they cannot get better enough. Battery technology is advancing rapidly, it also has a lot more 'headroom' for improvement before you approach it's theoretical limits. Things get worse for fuel cells if you have energy sources such as solar, wind, geothermal etc where you need to make Hydrogen by electrolysis. Anything other than petroleum which you can reform to make hydrogen at 80% efficiency and the overall efficiency of fuel cells cannot even approach HALF of what batteries currently do. For longevity, performance over temperature, simplicity, reliability, high power, ease of recharge, etc. batteries win hands down over fuel cells. Fuel cells systems in cars require a large hybrid battery system to even operate at a reasonable efficiency. Fuel cells have NO advantages other than the energy density of the stored fuel is 4-6 times higher than batteries.

2)I counter your future maybe technical breakthrough with my own future maybe technical breakthrough of massively improved battery energy density. Or $0.10 a watt solar cells. Even if you can produce hydrogen from bacteria economically, you would probably be better off using it in large cogeneration fuel cell plant to produce electricity much more efficiently than in a vehicle. Distribute the electricity over wires much more efficiently than you can transport hydrogen. Charge up your battery powered vehicle and go. All at probably twice the efficiency of a fuel cell vehicle.

3) The Concept of the distribution system is similar. A concept does not equal a real infrastructure. You still have NO hydrogen distribution infrastructure. You will need to build ALL of it from scratch. If you hadn't noticed, there ARE electrical outlets everywhere. Because the dominant usage model is people driving their cars in the day and charging them at night the need to build new power plants is greatly reduced. Current power plant capacity is sized to meet peak demands during the day, at night there is an enormous amount of available power generating capability all ready in place that can be used to charge batteries. All with NO cost in added infrastructure. The GM volt plug in hybrid will use only a normal 120V 15A circuit for recharge. You also seemed to miss the point that well to wheels a fuel cell vehicle produces more pollution than a battery powered one. If you use solar, wind, or geothermal energy you will get 2-3 times the efficiency of a fuel cell vehicle by using a battery vehicle.

4) You are just guessing about toxic chemicals and waving your hands in vague generalities. What chemicals are inside depends completely on what battery chemistry you are talking about. Some have nothing in them with a long term environmental impact. And no it won't be cheaper to throw out batteries in some third world country and just build new ones. The batteries will be very desirable economically to recycle. They are large, standardized structures, easily transported, easily disassembled to component materials, with very high dollar value of contained materials. From a recycling standpoint it just doesn't get any better than this.

Electric cars are not a stopgap, they are the future. If you hadn't noticed, a fuel cell car is an electric car. The only difference between a battery powered car and a fuel cell car is how you store the energy. The only thing that matters is
1) Can you store enough energy in the car economically and compactly enough to do the job?
2) What is the most efficient way to get your energy from the source to the wheels.

Hydrogen is just another type of battery, and unfortunately it's a less efficient one with a lot of fuel storage and transport problems.

Go do the research, read up on it, understand what you are actually talking about. Don't just regurgitate sound bites that you've heard.


RE: Heh
By BansheeX on 3/24/2008 9:32:07 AM , Rating: 2
I would agree, and one of the things that also makes me gravitate towards supporting batteries is the possibility of becoming cost-dependent for car fuel in everyday use, as in, having a windmill in my backyard and effectively getting free fuel as a result.


RE: Heh
By semo on 3/24/2008 7:07:19 AM , Rating: 1
the only reason you get electricity from coal/gas is because so much time and money has been invested in this type of power generation. there are many ways you can generate power but these solutions seem "expensive" and "exotic" today. really? searching, the whole earth for a buried oil slick, drilling in dangerous places, transporting all that unrefined crap, refining the crap, delivering it to petrol stations (i've probably missed a dozen steps). so that's a lot cheaper to develop, implement and run.

and at the petrol stations you're not even allowed to use a mobile phone, it's considered so dangerous. if oil was discovered today, health and safety fears would not even allow it to have media coverage


RE: Heh
By masher2 (blog) on 3/24/2008 9:29:42 AM , Rating: 2
> "the only reason you get electricity from coal/gas is because so much time and money has been invested in this type of power generation"

No. We've been producing electricity from coal since the 1800s...and it took very little R&D to build those first coal-fired plants (Edison essentially designed the first one on his own). They've increased in efficiency a bit in the past 130 years, but the basic design is still the same.

The reason we get power from coal and gas is because nature has conveniently concentrated vast amounts of energy for us, making it trivial to extract it feasibly.

> "if oil was discovered today, health and safety fears would not even allow it to have media coverage "

Very true....sad, isn't it?


RE: Heh
By Bioniccrackmonk on 3/24/2008 10:34:12 AM , Rating: 2
quote:
if oil was discovered today, health and safety fears would not even allow it to have media coverage


Same could be said for Aspirin, smoking, alcohol and half of the toys we played with as kids.


RE: Heh
By Strunf on 3/24/2008 1:42:42 PM , Rating: 2
"if oil was discovered today, health and safety fears would not even allow it to have media coverage"

No if oil was discovered today that would mean we have been using something else... if oil was better than that something else it wouldn't face any objections.


RE: Heh
By wien on 3/24/2008 8:35:49 AM , Rating: 2
quote:
If everything progresses as it has the last 10 years we'll have commercially viable hydrogen powered cars that perform as good if not better than current gas powered cars that produce no pollution
No direct pollution. You still need to create hydrogen in sufficient quantities. You can't get energy from thin air. The laws of thermodynamics still apply if you power your car with hydrogen.


RE: Heh
By Samus on 3/24/2008 7:05:36 AM , Rating: 2
As you said MasMaster, batteries are old technology. Join the 21st century...by the 22nd, everything could be Hydrogen powered, even your cellphone and laptop.


RE: Heh
By 9nails on 3/24/2008 12:19:42 AM , Rating: 2
Doesn't rocket boosters, such as the Space Shuttle, use liquid Hydrogen for flight? Sure, it takes energy to store liquid hydrogen - but it also offers an attractive amount of energy as well. Its no longer a question of if it can be done, but now of how can it be done economically.

I'm not thrilled about my new carbon buckey-ball emitting fuel, but if it gets my dollar out of Dubai then lets speed the research up.


RE: Heh
By freaqie on 3/24/2008 5:26:36 AM , Rating: 2
it is not so mucht the storage as it is the production that takes a lot of energy.
hydrogen is created by electrolyzing water,,,,
which takes power...
and as school has taught you everything you do has a loss...
so you lose energy wit each transition.
however. if we can transform warmth or light to energy.
we can use it freely. ie solar panels and stiring engines
or even watermills, windmills all use energy that would be wasted to make energy that will be used.

so if we have extra capacity weshould use that to make hydrogen with and maybe pwer our cars with it. then dwe donot pollute or use energy to make hydrogen...
so go stirling ( transfers heat into motion into power)


RE: Heh
By Master Kenobi (blog) on 3/24/2008 8:31:56 AM , Rating: 2
The space shuttle's fuel tank is Liquid Hydrogen with a Liquid Oxygen component as an oxidizer.


RE: Heh
By TITAN1080 on 3/24/08, Rating: -1
RE: Heh
By masher2 (blog) on 3/24/2008 10:16:41 AM , Rating: 2
> "If it takes more energy to produce something than the amount of energy you get from the end product, how is that beneficial?"

It takes more energy to produce electricity than one gets from it, but that doesn't make electricity worthless.

Hydrogen is no different. It's an energy carrier just like electricity; a means to cleanly and efficiently transmit energy from where it's produced to where it's consumed.


RE: Heh
By an0dize on 3/24/2008 12:41:12 PM , Rating: 2
Right now, nuclear fusion requires much more energy than it produces. Does that mean we should abandon research and development?


RE: Heh
By blowfish on 3/24/2008 10:31:26 AM , Rating: 1
Well at least you can be certain that the oil companies will strive to make Hydrogen the fuel of the future, just as the big auto companies will do all in their power to suppress battery electric vehicles, no matter what the improvements in battery technology.


But where to get the hydrogen?
By BlackIceHorizon on 3/23/2008 8:32:23 PM , Rating: 2
Sounds promising. But it's important to remember that hydrogen isn't a source of energy, only a means of storing it, and has some level of inefficiency just like any other storage device. Effectively, this is a physical storage technology for an energy storage technology. You still have to produce the hydrogen, which will take more energy than you'll get out of it upon use.

I'm not arguing that it's a bad idea, but this won't be solving our energy issues unless we pair it with cheap hydrogen production. Personally, I'm a fan of several of the next (4th) gen nuclear power plant designs that will run at temperatures capable of efficient thermochemical hydrogen production in addition to electricity. Check out the gen 4 roadmap: http://nuclear.inl.gov/gen4/docs/gen_iv_roadmap.pd...
Hydrogen can also be made from fossil fuels (that's how we do it now), but that pretty much defeats the purpose of using it to store energy.




RE: But where to get the hydrogen?
By rodrigu3 on 3/23/2008 11:25:13 PM , Rating: 2
some anaerobic, photosynthetic bacteria are capable of producing hydrogen from their normal metabolic processes - I don't know why scientists don't pay more attention to natural sources of energy production


RE: But where to get the hydrogen?
By 9nails on 3/24/2008 12:28:15 AM , Rating: 2
No research in bacteria metabolism? I suppose the reason what that would be is maybe because it sexy yet? I once heard that the way to get money for scientific research wasn't to ask for money to research the natural behavior of penguins, but instead to ask for funding to research "global warming effects on penguin natural behaviors" since the term "global warming" is sexy at the moment and attractive to project funding.

I'd also bet that big oil is against funding such projects since a paradigm shift in how you collect dollars isn't a business savvy move. It would take a motivated corporation or government to put up the research money.


By AlvinCool on 3/24/2008 8:23:10 AM , Rating: 2
Makes me soooo glad I have a septic tank


By masher2 (blog) on 3/24/2008 9:32:36 AM , Rating: 2
While it is true that GW is consuming vast amounts of research dollars at present, we're still spending some on bacterial production of hydrogen. See this story for details:

http://www.dailytech.com/Microbial+Hydrogen+Produc...


RE: But where to get the hydrogen?
By MrPoletski on 3/24/2008 3:36:15 AM , Rating: 2
Energy and matter are one and the same;)


RE: But where to get the hydrogen?
By freaqie on 3/24/2008 5:30:41 AM , Rating: 2
so basically you are only energy ...
ut how do you type then...
energy has no mass ( ok it does but to little)
(sorry couldn't help myself :P)


8%?
By skroh on 3/24/2008 12:29:20 AM , Rating: 2
Now granted, math was never my strong suit, and as for science I was always better at absorbing the concepts than working the formulas, but their 8% storage capacity figure has me thinking of another hydrogen storage method.

It is plentiful, self-assembling, stable at normal temperature and pressure, and contains two hydrogen atoms for every atom of the storage material, making the medium 66% hydrogen, though not by weight. I think they call it... water!

Combine these factoids with the discovery noted in these pages a few weeks ago of a catalyst metal alloy for cracking hydrogen out of water without the application of electricity or other external energy, and one wonders if water might not be the best storage tech for hydrogen after all?

But like I said, I don't know the math with regard to the weight impact of water, plus the catalyst, vs. buckyballs. Then again, as others have already noted, the buckyballs will need an infusion/extraction process of some kind, which surely adds many complications.




RE: 8%?
By phil126 on 3/24/2008 1:20:02 AM , Rating: 2
Not quite right. By weight H2O, O = ~16 and H = ~1. So 2/16 = 1/8 or 12.5%. Water stores hydrogen by 12.5% by weight. So the 8% that the carbon could do is pretty good.


RE: 8%?
By MrPoletski on 3/24/2008 3:40:13 AM , Rating: 2
That'd be 2/18 and hence 11.111111%


RE: 8%?
By phil126 on 3/24/2008 9:06:55 AM , Rating: 2
O's mass is 16 not 18.


RE: 8%?
By masher2 (blog) on 3/24/2008 9:36:02 AM , Rating: 2
Yes, but what you want is the molar mass of the water molecule in total, not just the O2 in it. That's 1/9 = 11.1%, as the previous poster said.


Buckyball, Soccerball, seperated at birth?
By ImSpartacus on 3/23/2008 8:46:06 PM , Rating: 2
Hmm, those buckyballs look a wee bit like soccer balls...




RE: Buckyball, Soccerball, seperated at birth?
By choadenstein on 3/23/2008 10:48:37 PM , Rating: 2
then shouldn't they be called Beckham Balls?


By MrPoletski on 3/24/2008 3:31:11 AM , Rating: 3
Beckham doesn't have any balls, he's a squealing girlie.


black dust
By splint on 3/23/2008 9:24:51 PM , Rating: 2
This is cool and all, but since what everyone is really interested in is the pure hydrogen, wouldn’t the remaining 92% of fuel weight in carbon waste be a problem? Even though it might be easy to collect the carbon, this would just introduce yet another logistics problem.




RE: black dust
By Macuser89 on 3/23/2008 9:40:15 PM , Rating: 2
Depends on how much hydrogen you can fit inside the ball.


RE: black dust
By masher2 (blog) on 3/23/2008 10:21:39 PM , Rating: 3
Hydrogen has 3X the energy density of gasoline by weight. So from the perspective of excess mass, this storage system would weigh 4X as much as an equivalent amount of gas. Not great, but probably better than the alternative of extremely massive high-pressure tanks.

From an emissions perspective, I would expect that the fullerene would, upon giving up its H2 cargo, still remain in powder form. So collecting it wouldn't be a problem.

The biggest issue as I see it is how to cheaply and effectively load and unload the hydrogen in the buckyballs.


Nice but...
By kontorotsui on 3/24/2008 6:51:56 PM , Rating: 2
Ok, you can store hydrogen in those.
But how do you do? And how do you extract it? How much energy and technology does it take?
It's like nuclear fusion, we know how it works and that we could make it (controlled), but HOW?




RE: Nice but...
By Captain Orgazmo on 3/25/2008 5:47:38 AM , Rating: 2
"But how do you do?" Fine, thanks. As far getting the hydrogen into the fullerene, Cadbury (the geniuses who got the caramel into the Caramilk bar) should be up to the task. Getting it out? Easy, just dissolve in warm milk with some sugar, and enjoy on a cold day.


Boom?
By bupkus on 3/24/2008 4:56:23 AM , Rating: 3
I just hope nobody decides to weaponize my buckyballs.




By nfin1ty on 3/23/2008 8:12:55 PM , Rating: 2
should it not read: "The solution to storing hydrogen efficiently"?




did I miss something?
By jlips6 on 3/23/2008 10:33:30 PM , Rating: 2
This article says that all this is based on a computer simulation. Does that mean that they have actually put the hydrogen in to buckyballs, or that the buckyballs could theoretically be used to store hydrogen if we developed a way to put hydrogen in to them?




Awfully complex
By MadMaster on 3/23/2008 10:42:21 PM , Rating: 2
This system is awfully complex. Not only will you have to remove the hydrogen from the buckyballs (cheaply and efficiently), but they will also have to put the hydrogen into the buckyballs cheaply.

Then you have the logistics of loading and unloading the buckyballs...which will certainly be more complex than gasoline.

Then it still has to compete with BEVs and gasoline...




I've got bucky balls
By phxfreddy on 3/24/2008 8:52:15 AM , Rating: 2
and if you ever had bucky balls before you know how bad that can hurt.




H2, Batteries, Nuclear
By snownpaint on 3/25/2008 6:26:17 PM , Rating: 2
First off.. in almost all cases pointed out here, we need cheap, Clean, massive amounts of electricity. Oil, NG, and coal are far from clean and still require current imports and mining. (plus we make a good portion of electricity from them now) These will not provide the stand alone fix, nor the truly clean energy source.. Nuclear will provide more electricity then is needed, with tons to spare. (though arguments on clean). Also we have ton of fission material in the states.. With that, we could charge all the batteries, and still make tons and tons of Hydrogen.. batteries have made amazing leaps, but unless we can really pack the power into them, they are heavy, and weight to long-term power low.. Storing H2 in simple C60 form, if able to handle it, should at least cut the insulation factors in storing H2 and make it easier to transport. I don't see the world's travel/transportation being cornered by the battery powered jet plane.. ( and those can eat fuel..)




By halcyon on 3/24/2008 4:53:54 AM , Rating: 1
Hydrogen could be a possible transitory fuel, IF we solve the manufacturing, transport, fuel cell and storage issue.

Those are ENGINEERING challenges.

However, hydrogen is not a freely available primary energy fuel found on earth.

It must be made (or retrieved from another planet) and takes much more energy than it releases in use.

That is a PHYSICS issue and cannot be circumvented with clever engineering.

So, do understand that hydrogen is an energy carrier, not an energy source, as the situation stands on earth.

So, the road to hydrogen has both engineering and fundamental physics challenges.

Even if we solve the engineering challenges, a full hydrogen fuel cycle can not be as efficient as a full electricity/battery cycle, regardless of which primary energy method we use to make the hydrogen.

This is a fundamental thermodynamic ceiling imposed by basic physics.

If you want to understand why, google Ulf Bossel for more.




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