GE says its new machine could make the hydrogen economy affordable, by slashing the cost of water-splitting technology.
Among the many daunting challenges to replacing fossil fuels with hydrogen is how to make hydrogen cheaply in ways that don't pollute the environment. Splitting water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen using electricity from energy sources such as wind turbines is one possibility -- but it's still far too expensive to be widely practical.
Now researchers at GE say they've come up with a prototype version of an easy-to-manufacture apparatus that they believe could lead to a commercial machine able to produce hydrogen via electrolysis for about $3 per kilogram -- a quantity roughly comparable to a gallon of gasoline -- down from today's $8 per kilogram. That could make it economically practical for future fuel-cell vehicles that run on hydrogen.
Electrolyzers are fairly simple technologies: water is mixed with potassium hydroxide electrolyte and made to flow past a stack of electrodes. Electricity causes the water molecules to split into hydrogen and oxygen gases, which bubble out of the solution. The chemistry makes a good high-school science experiment -- but commercial-scale quantities of hydrogen are extracted far more cheaply from natural gas.
The core problem in improving electrolyzers for hydrogen manufacture is not how to improve the fundamental conversion efficiency, says Richard Bourgeois, an electrolysis project leader at GE Global Research in Niskayuna, NY. "You can only make it so much more efficient; there isn't a lot you can do. So we've attacked the capital costs," he says.
Today's electrolyzers are made of metal plates bolted together manually, with gaskets between them, and the whole unit is typically housed in a chamber made of the same metals used in the electrodes, says Bourgeois. The materials are expensive and assembly requires costly labor.
Bourgeois' research team came up with a way to make future electrolyzers largely out of plastic. They used a GE plastic called Noryl that is extremely resistant to the highly alkaline potassium hydroxide. And because the plastic is easy to form and join, manufacturing an electrolyzer is relatively cheap.
Inside the plastic housing, metal electrodes still do the same job. But because GE is using less electrode material, the reactivity of the electrodes' surfaces is improved. To do this, the researchers borrowed a spray-coating process -- normally used to apply coatings for parts on jet engines -- to coat the electrodes with a proprietary nickel-based catalyst with a large surface area.
A new process uses sunlight and a nanostructured catalyst to inexpensively and efficiently generate hydrogen for fuel.
A breakthrough process for converting biomass into biodiesel fuel promises a cheaper way to go green.
Guest (Peter Jacobs)
Help with making the comparison
It would be nice if the article gave some easier (and perhaps more useful) comparisons. Comparison on the basis of weight of fuel I think is not the best way to consider these things.
For instance 1 kg H2 gives 143 KJ heat of combustion (I will ignore the fact that a fuel cell does not "combust" to do PV work like and car engine.)
1 kg gasoline gives ~ 45 KJ heat of combustion.
Some better ways to make a comparison might be.
What is the capital cost of the electrolyzer in $/Watt?
What is the efficiency of the electrolyzer in (Joules/Joule)?
Guest (Ian)
Re: Help with making the comparison
If you consider the density of gasoline versus the density of hydrogen and you will see that the difference is quite significant. The energy density is much higher for gasoline. For a usable hydrogen-powered car, the research into compression and storage of high-pressure hydrogen must improve considerably. The heat of combustion per kg is pretty much irrelevant
Guest (Orin Laney)
Has this been tested only with reagent grade water, or has this been succesful with the hard water found in much of the country? The economics won't work if the gadget lifetime goes to heck if lousy tap water is all you have.
Guest (Fred Stone)
This seems more like an Investor Relations story that a true technical advancement.
Guest (Ted)
The DOE's H2A model currently pricesing hydrogen from electrolysis at $5.88/kg at the forecourt.
Guest (Rick)
A Honda FCX Concept can travel 350 miles on 5 kg's of hydrogen.
Guest (Vladimir Tikal)
70 miles per kg = $ 3.00 = 4.3 cents per mile. We all should by GE shares
My name is also Vladimir Tikal. Would you write to me? vtikal@yahoo.com
Guest (Rick)
A Honda Accord V6 travels 354 miles on 17.1 gallons of gasoline.
Guest (Rick)
A Honda Accord V6 is a similarly sized and powered as compared to the Honda FCX Concept. Which is cheaper to drive even at the H2A forecourt price (which assumes 100% financing of capital costs)?
Guest (Rick)
Guest (MurMac)
GE is claiming that it is "Going Green". Maybe so . . . as Willie Sutton the bank robber said when asked why he robbed banks, 'because that's where the money is'. Green is where the money is if done right. However, many companies have gone down the green drain. Perhaps GE is big enough to pull it off.
Guest (Steve Koelzer)
We’re gonna pay for Cheap H2 one way r’nother. Capital cost barrier or no, electrolytic hydrogen still comes from coal-fired power plants. So, the borrowed spray-coating process from FCT, LLC is probably plasma or e-gun. "el Cheapo"could be farmed south using oxy-acetylene flamespray, or even electrostatic spray‘n bake. We already have ($$$) reverse PEMs pressurizing H2 to kPSIs from solar electricity-just add water! You could even get oxygen as a bonus from/for (radioactive) coal dust. Call me old fashioned but I still prefer the surface science approach to the burning bush: primary current calculations, microfabrication & combinatorial nanosynthesis. Works wonders.
Steve, can you please e-mail me. We have some very similar thoughts on this. cg@localsurfer.com
Chuck
Guest (RAJA)
what is the capital cost for a plant of capacity 100 m3/day of hydrogen?
Guest (Blake)
Wouldn't it be neat to set one of these up with your own wind/solar power and take your car "off the grid"?? It would be nice even if the strict economics don't work out in your favor... Also this could change the whole mad max scenario.
Guest (michael)
what happens to the waste oxygen produced. can it be easily collected and used to offset cost of production of H2?
Guest (KPerry)
IGCC plants could use the pure O2 to significantly reduce NOx coming from waste heat boiler. Co-location / integration really needs to be considered in terms of leveraging these products.
Guest (Juan Hernandez)
What is the use of Vanadium Pentoxide in Hydrogen Electrolyzers?
Re: V2O5 in Hydrogen Electrolyzer
no sure but V2O5 is it cost effective, I don't think so
Re: V2O5 in Hydrogen Electrolyzer
I am M.Tech. student in Energy management.I am currently doing research in Hydrogen field.I found your web-site more helpful to me.
Thank you.
What about hydrogen in hoverboard
Its quiet interesting to read about hydrogen fuel. I was wondering if it could be helpful in making objects hover e.g. the hoverboard recently launched by Arbortech by the name of AIRBOARD (http://www.airboard.com.au/). I will be really grateful if you could comment on that. Thank you :)How could it affect its performance in terms of fuel-efficiency and thurst. Whic one would be better gasoline or hydrogen .
Which (cheap) separator do you use?
What will be working temperature?
July 2, 2008
While the technology is new, I feel and think that I must ask why the cost of hydrogen fuel sale is comparable to premium fuel
<http://articles.directorym.net/Cheap_Hydrogen_Fuel_Los_Angeles_CA-r868701-Los_Angeles_CA.html>.
Wasn’t part of the plan to begin finding cheaper and environmentally cleaner ways to fuel our vehicles? Is the expensive cost really doing us any good as drivers? Any future predictions? Thank you!
The article is dated March 9, 2006. And states GE's new electrolyzer could be ready for production in a few years. At the end of the articale was - Home page image courtesy of GE. GE's bench-top electrolyzer prototype for hydrogen production. Could not find anything. I am writing this July 26, 2008. Where can I buy a bench top electrolyzer for experiments?
Thanks, Dennis
You can't. This "breakthrough" wasn't real. GE never issued a statement - they should.
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Guest (Paul Holister)
What about the cost of the electricity?
Presumably, the $3 a kilo needs to be added on to the cost of generating the electricity, which paints quite a different picture.
Reply
Guest (Gary Beach)
Technology Breakthroughs
Reduction in cost from $8/kilo to $3/kilo is a tremendous step forward! Kudos to GE for having the courage to address these fundamental issues of technology and economics.
Reply
Guest (MurMac)
Cost of electricity to get cheap H2
GE's website has a link to a pdf document that discusses its attempts to use solar energy and says it hopes for competitive costs by 2015 or 2020
http://www.crd.ge.com/04_media/news/20041117_hydrogen.shtml
Reply
Guest (Neil Brosnahan)
G.E.'s Spray Coating Process
These guys should be talking to the Lithium Ion battery guys.
Reply
eco-enviro
1 Comment
Re: G.E.'s Spray Coating Process
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Reply
Guest (B. K. Richard)
End to End Cost
It seems that there is an efficiency advantage of using local DC current (e.g. from solar). Hydrogen production could act like a storage system (energy used when sun is not shining). How does a full "energy system" pencil out (PV, electrolysis, fuel cell)?
Reply
Guest (Ron Wagner)
Cost of electricity
New technologies can cheaply make electricity. The problem is storing it. By storing it in a hydride slurry, it can be used as needed to make electricity. The slurry can be used as a liquid that can be pumped like gasoline. The slurry is reprocessed. All you need a wind turbine, a biomass powered turbine generator, solar cells, wave power, etc.
We need congressional leadership to help make this happen asap. Unfortunately it will probably happen in Japan first.
All the best,
Ron Wagner
Reply
dukieh
1 Comment
Re: What about the cost of the electricity?
If you built a 250 megewatt power plant and used some of the 250 megawatts to make hydrogen to burn to power the plant to produce electricity, (instead of buying coal or natural gas), how many megawatts would you need to use to make enough hydrogen to produce a 250 megawatt output?
Reply