Fuel Cell

This looks like a very cool product. After reading the press release about how good the fuel cell will be for the environment, I am left with a question for the whiz-bang engineers in our crowd. How do we get the hydrogen that these things need to produce electricity? Wouldn't it take just as much "unclean" energy to produce the hydrogen as the fuel cell will produce? You can't just mine or drill for hydrogen. I have never read anything about where the hydrogen will come from. Any body know?
 
In the same magazine was a short article on a product that passed a small voltage through potassium hydroxide to produce hydrogen for injection into the cylinders of an internal combustion engine to improve efficiency. The device was said to be the size of a cable box. On the Envbike web site, there was mention of a shoebox size hydrogen generator but no other details.
 
CAVU":2gr0csl0 said:
This looks like a very cool product. After reading the press release about how good the fuel cell will be for the environment, I am left with a question for the whiz-bang engineers in our crowd. How do we get the hydrogen that these things need to produce electricity? Wouldn't it take just as much "unclean" energy to produce the hydrogen as the fuel cell will produce? You can't just mine or drill for hydrogen. I have never read anything about where the hydrogen will come from. Any body know?
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I will definitely take energy to produce the hydrogen but it is generally not that case that it must be the of the "unclean" variety. In general, large scale production of energy (even from coal burning electricity plants) can be "cleaner" per KW of energy produced than a typical car as there is some economy of scale that allows for exhaust scrubbers and pollution abatement systems to be installed that would not be practical on a small scale. In addition, one can (in principal) produce electricity with hydro, solar, wind, tidal or nuclear power which don't generate airborne pollution. However, hydrogen doesn't liquify unless it is incredibly cold so it will be difficult to move much of it around in bulk. Hence, I think unless it is generated locally, the biggest issue will be delivery of the fuel.

One thing I noticed on my recent trip to Shanghai was how many taxis were running on LNG (liquified natural gas). That burns much cleaner than gasoline or diesel and is competitively priced now days.

Roger on the SeaDNA
 
Going back to physics, you could use the excess generator capacity of the outboard while under way to do electrolysis of water capturing the hydrogen and hopefully getting rid of the oxygen.

It's going to be storage issue both for fuel and electricity. What will you able to buy and take on board that will generate hydrogen for a fuel cell without increasing the risk of burning the whole thing down to the waterline? The other major consideration is a fuel cell doesn't respond well to instanteous loads such as that generated by turning on the coffee pot. Meaning that at the current level of development, you will still need batteries or excess capacity.

I have heard of some work with fuel cells and capacitors. The fuel cell charges the capacitor which handles the coffee pot until the fuel cell can generate more electricity.

However, it is all speculation. Next year I will still have two batteries and two gas tanks and a small inverter.
 
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