Technologies Of The Year -- Harvesting Hydrogen
Wednesday, November 16, 2005
"The Purdue researchers first started toying with a new way to produce hydrogen for fuel cells in October 2004. The approach: Combine the two known processes. Their early experiments yielded encouraging results. "We combined these two reactions into one single setup in which both reactions occur simultaneously," Varma says. "What we've done is replaced the activation of the borohydride reaction with water, and instead of being done with a catalyst, it is done with the heat that is liberated by the second reaction. We call the chemical mixture to carry out both reactions a triple borohydride-metal-water mixture. The researchers envision a system in which pellets of hydrogen-releasing material would be contained in disposable credit-card-sized cartridges, which would be available where consumers buy batteries. A computer chip would automatically detect when the battery needed to be recharged, activating a new pellet until all pellets on the cartridge were consumed. Once the pellets were used up, a new cartridge would be inserted into devices such as cell phones, PDAs, notebook computers, digital cameras, handheld medical diagnostic devices and defibrillators." Source: industryweek.com
posted by Frank @ 8:42 PM,
