Nanotechnology to power hydrogen economy

Filed in archive Energy on May 15, 2006

With gas process topping $3 a gallon, alternative fuels like hydrogen are getting noticed.

Although hydrogen may be a way off as an everyday fuel, nanotechnology is helping bring the day closer when hydrogen powers everything from cars to computers. Nanotechnology can help develop efficient, inexpensive catalysts for hydrogen production and storage, according to a recent MIT news release.

But hurdles abound. "We need to develop the technology to convert hydrogen and water to free hydrogen, but we don't know how to do it cheaply and at a large scale," Professor Mildred S. Dresselhaus of the Technion Israel Institute of Technology, said recently.

Onboard storage of hydrogen gas is the major obstacle impeding the progress and wide-scale commercial production of hydrogen-powered vehicles, according to a recent article at CarJunky.com.

But nanotech could overcome that with tiny graphite structures that act together as a sponge to absorb and store hydrogen in the automobile's fuel system. These nanostructures are extremely porous, like a sponge, allowing them to absorb large capacities of hydrogen until fully saturated.

Chemists at UCLA and the University of Michigan have announced just such a "crystal sponge" material that can store nearly three times more hydrogen than any substance known previously in its pores, says a National Science Foundation press release.

Known as metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), they have a crystal structure that resembles a scaffold made of linked rods -- a structure that gives them a multitude of nanoscale pores, and a correspondingly huge internal surface area where gas molecules can attach. (A pinch of a MOF has roughly the surface area of a football field.)

But another obstacle lies outside the car. "The car manufacturers say they could start producing hydrogen cars in a few years, but say the infrastructure to support the hydrogen cars does not exist. The energy companies say they can start to build hydrogen stations in quantities if there was a concentration of hydrogen cars to serve."

That's what architect Alan Goldberg told nanotechbuzz. To overcome that catch-22, Goldberg has designed a prototype hydrogen fueling station and information center he hopes will encourage the move to hydrogen vehicles.

The ARRC/H2 alliance includes Goldberg's firm AG/ENA along with Shell Hydrogen, Hydrogenics, and other companies.

"The public needs to become aware of hydrogen as a clean, safe renewable source of energy before it will embrace this new technology," Goldberg added.

With high prices added to all the environmental and health damage - even wars - that oil has caused, let's hope advances in nanotech will accelerate the drive to hydrogen.