Wednesday, October 31, 2018

Hydrogen for fuel cell cars from hydrogen peroxide?

There is a group of Israeli scientists who claim to have discovered a new way to get hydrogen for fuel cell cars.  It is from hydrogen peroxide.

Quote:
“Beyond the scientific breakthrough, we have shown that the photo-electrochemical reaction mechanism belongs to a family of chemical reactions for which Prof. Gerhard Ertl was awarded with a Nobel Prize in Chemistry, about a decade ago. Our discovery opens new strategies for photochemical processes,” Yochelis is quoted as saying.


My take:  Someone seems to be following the work of a Nobel Prize winner, but that doesn't mean that this is Nobel Prize winning work.  How do you get hydrogen peroxide?  Does the process make that, or do you obtain it from some other source?

The current method is described in Wikipedia thusly.  If this new process produces it more cheaply, then the next step is to obtain hydrogen from the hydrogen peroxide.  Hydrogen peroxide will break down naturally into water and oxygen.  We don't need the oxygen, though.  We need hydrogen.

The trick is to get the hydrogen into the water molecule, which produces the peroxide.  This process must make hydrogen peroxide in a new way.  Otherwise, it doesn't make much sense to me yet.  Or, it may split the hydrogen from the hydrogen peroxide in a new way, which cannot be done easily just yet.

Hydrogen peroxide is useful as rocket fuel, but I am not sure that oxygen alone will oxidize it.

The other part of this claim is that it doesn't use as much power, so sunlight or windpower can drive the process.  We'll have to see about that.

If it all works as claimed, I am all for it.


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