Hola Folks!
I found this ASTOUNDING item in an article about a Thai science
fair...the reporter needs a baseball bat up the side of his head for not
digging much deeper into the claims of this 12 year olds project!
I can't think of any simple way to pull hydrogen from AIR since it is so
light and disappears. More likely this kid is MAKING HYDROGEN with some
electrolysis unit or water arc.
http://www.bangkokpost.com/News/06Nov2005_news02.php
11/09/05 - Thai Student invents hydrogen from air separator for cars
(This is the only information I could find about this kids invention on
the net. Definitely worth tracking down!!! JWD)
More innovative designs won prizes in the upper primary school category.
First prize went to a physicist-aspirant Witawin Jongjatuporn, 12, of
Triam Udom Suksa Pattanakarn School, whose brainchild is a car which
runs on air.
The propeller in the rear sucks in air and separates the hydrogen to
fill up the tank, heralding an age of ''perennially renewable energy.''
----------------------
Would someone please tell me how you extract hydrogen this easily from
ambient air? And on the budget this kid would be using?
I thought it might be a reporting error, that the kid was pulling in
nitrogen which is 78% of our air, but it doesn't burn, though the
article doesn't say if it burns (hydrogen) or expands (liquid nitrogen)
to drive the pistons of the car.
------------------
http://www.fuelcellmarkets.com/article_default_view.fcm?articleid=3064&subsite=453
Hydrogen is a major constituent of the stars, and is the third most
abundant element on Earth where it is concentrated in water and
hydrocarbons.
But unlike nitrogen and oxygen the other mainstay gases used in industry
hydrogen is only present in small amounts in air.
So instead of extracting hydrogen from air, industrial gases companies
like BOC use a number of manufacturing methods.
As a result of this situation, several large-scale processes have been
developed for the production of hydrogen from fossil fuels and from
water. These processes are generically called steam reforming. The feed
stock is generally of natural gas or the partial oxidation of hydrogen
from heavy fuel oil or coal. Hydrogen can also be made as a secondary
energy carrier from chlorine-alkaline electrolysis or the low pressure
electrolysis of water.
--------------------
http://www.acnatsci.org/education/kye/te/kye9.00.html
Hydrogen can be derived from water and used to conveniently store energy
derived from renewable electric sources like wind and solar power.
Obtained in this manner, hydrogen is, in theory, limitless. Fossil fuels
are finite. Sources of hydrogen are not at the mercy of political turmoil.
Production of hydrogen itself remains challenge. Because pure hydrogen
must be derived from other sources, obtaining it requires energy and can
have environmental impacts.
Reformers processing natural gas, for example, tend to produce carbon
dioxide. Researchers have been looking at low energy chemical and even
biological processes for producing hydrogen, but these remain far in the
future.
---------------------
and then there is the bio fuel cell that does take hydrogen from the air;
http://doublecode.com/hydrogen/2005_10_01_archive.php
University fuel cell extracts hydrogen from air
"The prospect of running small devices on electricity generated from a
simple fuel cell running on atmospheric hydrogen and oxygen has been
raised by research at the University of Oxford. Professor Fraser
Armstrong used an enzyme rather than an expensive platinum catalyst to
promote the oxidation of hydrogen, and his biofuel cell generated
electricity with no membrane conventionally used to separate the
reactants in the cell. It also worked in the presence of carbon
monoxide, which poisons most catalysts. For small applications, maybe
even nano[scale], our fuel cell will produce electricity from just
traces of hydrogen in air, said Armstrong. Thats really novel because
you cant do that with any conventional fuel cell, you need a
membrane." Source: electronicsweekly.com
http://www.electronicsweekly.com/Articles/2005/10/25/36699/Universityfuelcellextractshydrogenfromair.htm
The prospect of running small devices on electricity generated from a
simple fuel cell running on atmospheric hydrogen and oxygen has been
raised by research at the University of Oxford.
Professor Fraser Armstrong used an enzyme rather than an expensive
platinum catalyst to promote the oxidation of hydrogen, and his
biofuel cell generated electricity with no membrane conventionally
used to separate the reactants in the cell. It also worked in the
presence of carbon monoxide, which poisons most catalysts.
For small applications, maybe even nano[scale], our fuel cell will
produce electricity from just traces of hydrogen in air, said
Armstrong. Thats really novel because you cant do that with any
conventional fuel cell, you need a membrane.
--
Jerry Decker - http://www.keelynet.com
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Order out of Chaos - From an Art to a Science
