Since Michael Faraday first split water into hydrogen and oxygen in 1820, scientists have puzzled over how to do this economically in large quantities. The Blog continues to run stories about “artificial leaves,” low-energy approaches to dividing the hydrogen in water from the oxygen, and doing so economically. The current most widely-used approach to capturing hydrogen is pulling it from natural gas via several processes. The Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy explains the process on its web site. Steam-methane Reforming In steam-methane reforming, “high-temperature steam (700°C–1,000°C) is used to produce hydrogen from a methane source, such as natural gas. In steam-methane reforming, methane reacts with steam under 3–25 bar pressure (1 bar = 14.5 psi) in the presence of a catalyst to produce hydrogen, carbon monoxide, and a relatively small amount of carbon dioxide. Steam reforming is endothermic—that is, heat must be supplied to the process for the reaction to proceed.” In a “’water-gas shift reaction,’ the carbon …
Will VW Take on Tesla?
Volkswagen just bought a five-percent stake in a startup company called QuantumScape, a commercial spinoff of work done at Stanford University’s Nanoscale Prototyping Laboratory for Energy Conversion and Storage. The Labroratory’s head, Fritz B. Prinz, Finmeccanica Professor of Engineering and Robert Bosch Chairman of Mechanical Engineering, explains: “Our team creates, models, and prototypes nanoscale structures to understand the physics of electrical energy conversion and storage. We are exploring the relation between size, composition, and the kinetics of charge transfer. We are also interested in learning from nature, in particular by studying the electron transport chain in plant cells.” (Note that the QuantumScape web site is curiously without detail, showing only four pretty pictures and making three or four non-controversial statements. The most information comes on the Contact link.) Whatever they are doing, the Lab has caught the interest of not only Volkswagen’s CEO Martin Winterkorn, but produced a flood of often speculative articles from Bloomberg, EV World and other sources, …
Hydrogen: Are We There Yet?
Probably not, but we are edging closer to when H2-powered vehicles (including small aircraft) might be as ubiquitous as Prius’s or Leafs – but there are significant barriers to overcome. Fuel cell-powered aircraft might make sense eventually from a physical and economic sense, and while new technologies show promise for EV use, hydrogen power still has barriers to overcome before we’re able to exploit the environmental benefits of hydrogen power. The appeal of a fuel cell to burn hydrogen and leave behind only a light mist of water still dazzles, but teasingly eludes us, not so much from a technical standpoint – but from environmental and economic ones. Two Most Practical Fuel Cells for Transportation Fuel cells come in many varieties, with proton exchange membrane (PEM) and solid oxide fuel cells (SOFC) types heading the list for practical vehicle use. PEM cells, according to Fuelcell.org, “operate at relatively low temperatures, have high power density, and can vary output quickly to …
A Cheerfully Acknowledged Chastisement
If one writes things, occasional slip-ups creep in. In this case, an unchallenged assertion of who is “first” drew this kind email from Klaus Savier, builder, tuner and pilot of a very slippery Long-Eze. He’s flown from California to Florida and back on good old fossil fuels (with one fuel stop each way) in his highly modified Long-Eze and achieved 30 miles per gallon at 250 miles per hour true airspeed. It would be interesting to see how little fuel the airplane would consume at Green Flight Challenge airspeeds. His demonstrated 0.36 pounds of fuel per horsepower-hour is claimed by Klaus to be 40-percent lower than the commonly seen 0.60 pounds per horsepower-hour that engines without his Light Speed Engineering ignition system and more standard propellers manage. It shows what a determined experimenter can accomplish. His letter follows: Hello Dean, Thank you for the nice article you wrote in Kitplanes a while ago. So far that was the only publication …
Lighter, More Powerful, Cheaper. Can J-CESR Bring Us Better Batteries?
$70,000 is a sizable base price for a car. That sum for the simplest of Tesla S sedans makes a bigger than average debt load for most of us, probably more than most can responsibly assume. Even the much anticipated model “E” at half that price is more stunning than the average sticker shock these days. What if, by some act of art or science, that $70,000 could be slashed to $14,000 for an electric vehicle that could travel 265 miles on a charge? That tall order is the order of the day for the Joint Center for Energy Storage Research, started two years ago under Dr. Steven Chu, who was then U. S. Secretary of Energy. He and his “teams” were charged with establishing the cooperative enterprise at “Argonne National Laboratory with a budget of $120 million over five years to create a battery five times more powerful and five times cheaper than today’s norms – all within five …
It’s (Green Aviation) Giving Tuesday, 2014
If you’ve managed to survive Gray Thursday, Black Friday, and a weekend of NFL games stuffed with blandishments to entice you to the nearest mall (Thanksgiving happened in there somewhere), you’re forgiven if you flinch at yet one more presumptuous tug at your purse strings. But we’re talking about helping pioneers on the edge of green technology, crafting the stuff dreams are made of – and making those dreams a reality. On this Giving Thursday, think about contributing to the dream makers who are taking us into a better future of flight. We share a few suggestions here. Solar Flight Eric and Irena Raymond are the first family of solar-powered flight, now cruising Italian skies in the world’s first two-seat sun-powered airplane, the Duo. To assist with further development of their splendid aircraft, including Sunstar, a high-altitude surveillance and communications craft, the couple is selling a beautiful calendar featuring their aircraft. For $37 US or 29 euros plus shipping, you …
Layering Astonishingly Light Materials to Make Electricity from Light
Researchers at the Vienna University of Technology have combined two semiconductor materials, each only three atomic layers thick. Adding one semiconducting layer of the photoactive crystal tungsten diselenide to a layer of molybdenum disulphide, and “creating a designer-material that may be used in future low-cost solar cells.” Having worked with graphene, that two-dimensional, atom-thick material that promises much for structures, batteries and solar cells, Thomas Mueuller, assistant professor of photonics, and his team “acquired the necessary know-how to handle, analyze and improve ultra-thin layers by working with graphene.” The team applied their lessons learned with graphene to combining two ultra-thin semiconductor layers and are now studying their optoelectronic properties. Mueller explains, ““Quite often, two-dimensional crystals have electronic properties that are completely different from those of thicker layers of the same material.” In their present study, the Tungsten diselenide, a semiconductor consisting of three atomic layers; one layer of tungsten sandwiched between two layers of selenium atoms. Mueller adds, “We had …
SolarStratos Construction to Begin in January
Just as we have competing teams working out their plans to cross the Atlantic on electrically-powered wings, several projects are aiming high, attempting to reach altitudes normally achieved only by SR-71 pilots. With balloon jumps topping 130,000 feet and the Perlan Project in final stages of construction for test flights early next year, the latest entrant in stratosphere-busting climbs will attempt the mission on batteries and solar power. Raphael Domjan, a self-described “eco-adventurer” and founder of Mission SolarStratos, will attempt by 2017 to top 80,000 feet in a two-seat, twin-motored craft designed and built by Calin Gologan and his PC-Aero team. The airplane, a long-winged derivation of Gologan’s Elektra Two Solar, will rely on recent developments between Gologan and his American Partner, George Bye. They’ve formed the American Electric Aircraft Corporation, dedicated to building, testing and certifying a two-seat trainer. Solar Stratos has a 24.4-meter (80.8 feet) wing, 7.4 meters (9.84 feet) longer than that on the longest-span Elektra Two. …
Feathers in Flight Inspire Anti-Turbulence Technology
“Inspired by nature’s own anti-turbulence devices – feathers,” researchers at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia, have developed a system that emulates the movements of feathers with which birds control their flight path in the most turbulent conditions. Dr. Case van Dam gave a talk at the 2014 Electric Aircraft Symposium on controlling aircraft in turbulence and providing smoother rides with Gurney flaps, jet flaps and micro tabs. The RMIT team chose to mimic the motions of feathers on a bird’s wing to gain many of the same advantages. The Unmanned Systems Research Team learned enough to file a provisional patent on the system, detecting disturbances in the air ahead of the airplane. Both approaches might help the electric commuter aircraft proposed by Dr. Brien Seeley and Dr. Mark Moore as part of the hoped-for “pocket airpark” system. Research supervisor Professor Simon Watkins explained the benefits of the University’s wind tunnel testing on a model of a small aircraft. “By sensing …
China Fields a Mass-Producible Electric Two-Seater
Dr. Seeley provided this link to a story from China Daily this morning. The blog reported on this airplane last year following its public debut, but this year, two examples showed up at the 10th China International Aviation and Aerospace Exhibition, also billed as Airshow China. Held in Zhuhai, Guangdong Province, the show featured daily flight demonstrations by one of the two aircraft on display. China Daily followed its headline with this optimistic kickline, “Huge markets are expected for the versatile, eco-friendly 2-seat RX1E, then reports, “China will soon put its first domestically developed electric aircraft into mass production, and designers expect a huge market at home and abroad.” “First” may be a dubious claim, with Tian Yu’s Greenwing International (Yuneec in China) e430 having flown five years ago, and having resumed flight testing in the US last year. It may be true in the sense that Yuneec International now only shows drones, action cameras and powered skateboards on its …