Hydrogen Compression

OSE Position

OSE proposes a robust economy based on water lubricated internal combustion engines running on hydrogen as a solution for distributed power production - available today using current technology with no new innovation needed outside of social innovation towards acceptance of the possibility.

Info

• Hydrogen Station Compression and Costs from NREL - [1]. Concludes cost of compression, storage, and
• Diaphragm compressor - for hydrogen - [2]
• Piston compressors provide high volume. Easier to do than diaphragm compressors. No need for ultra purity in hydrogen engines. [3]

Low Pressure Storage

• Low pressure hydrogen storage - [4] - NJ demo house.

Companies

• Pure Energy Centre - [5]

Hydrogen Cylinders

• 2000 PSI - 194 cu f (5.5 cu m) [6]

Hydrogen Generator

Separating Generator

• Diagram of system - [7]. Paper has info contacts at NREL, and comparison of PEM to alkaline.
• alkaline electrolyzer stack - price not shown - [8]
• 200 cc/min at 3-8 bar - $9k - [9]. With 1440 minutes/day - or 0.3 cu meter per day.
• 1000 cc/min - $3280 - for 1000 ml/min - 1.4 cu meter/day. Alkaline, 4 bar. That is 130 grams of hydrogen per day. [10]
  • Redo the same - and 10x lower cost.
  • Need 3 hours of Honda EU1000 generator - or 2.7 kWhr.
• 500 cc/min - $700 - [11]
  • x5 = $3500 for 2500 cc/min or 3.5 cu m per day. Or 290 grams per day. If 0.6 gal used for 7 hours at 1/4 power, Honda EU1000 can do 3.5 hours at 200W. Nearly 1 kWhr.
• Zirfon PERL is common electrolyzer separator material - [12]. It is a polysulfone (3D printable) and 85% ZrO2 nanoparticles blend. ZrO2 - [13]
• Both stainless steel and nickel work as electrodes - [14]
• Alkaline Electrolyzer Design

DIY Separating

• thediyscienceguy@gmail.com - [15]

Mixing Generator

• $200 for 6 lpm - but this is HHO, not H + 0
• Graphite plates work well - [16]
• Wet vs dry cell design - [17]

Demonstration Hydrogen Houses

• Hopewell Project - NJ - [18]. AKA Hydrogen House - [19]
• Scientific American - Oh, only $500k for the off-grid home - [20]

Hydrogen Engines

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_internal_combustion_engine_vehicle
• Improving the ICE for hydrogen use - [21]

Fuel Cells

• Fuel cell types overview - [22]
• 1kW costs $5k - [23]
• 400W for 8.5k Euro [24]
• $60/W - [25]
• 11k fuel cell cars exist already worldwide, half of them being in California - [26]
• From [27] -

Efficiency and Lifetime

• Efficiency from electrolysis back to electricity in fuel cells is 45% with fuel cells - p. 11 - [28]
• Lifetime of PEM FC is only 2k-4k hours in cars, and 40k in stationary applications. Major issues with longevity! [29]

Fueling Stations

• Cost approximately $1M each. OSE could fund these from proceeds of programmatic revenue in locations of OSE Campuses.

Seminal Work by Lovins

• 20 hydrogen myths - [30] published 2003/updated 2005, need to compare estimate vs reality (composite tanks may have been faster than expected, adoption/investment less etc)
  • Non-scribd source
  • Intresting quotes to dive into later:
    • "hydrogen would fuel a fourth of the vehicle fleet in the industrialized countries by 2025"
    • "Turning wheels with electric motors has well-known advantages of torque, ruggedness, reliability, simplicity, controllability, quietness, and low cost. Heavy and costly batteries have limited battery-powered electric cars to small niche markets, although the miniature lithium batteries

now used in cellphones are severalfold better than the batteries used in electric cars. But California regulators’ initial focus on battery cars had a huge societal value because it greatly advanced electric drivesystems. The only question is where to get the electricity. Hybrid-electric cars now on the market from Honda and Toyota, and soon from virtually all automakers, make the electricity with onboard engine-generators, or recover it from braking. These “hybrid-electric” designs provide all the advantages of electric propulsion without the disadvantages of batteries. Still better will be fuel cells — the most efficient (~50–70% from hydrogen to direct-current electricity), clean, and reliable known way to make electricity from fuel. Nearly all significant automakers now have major fuel-cell car development programs."

• • • • Lithium Ion Battery Development may have gone way farther than they predicted
    • "...However, the 2–3-fold efficiency advantage of the fuel cell, i.e., less

energy expended per mile, compared to a gasoline engine"

• • • • I feel most of the issues are brushed off via comparing fuel cells to gasoline engines, which is valid and fuel cells ARE GREAT, but this point is irrelevant with HICEs which may even add more inefficiency
    • "In general, the best way to get access to where you want to be is to be there already, via sensible

land-use (spatial planning or its market equivalent — American communities would have a lot less sprawl if their governments at all levels didn’t mandate and subsidize it)."

• • • • So true it hurts lol (also NUMTOT / New Urbanism has entered the chat)
    • "A hydrogen-optimized internal-combustion engine can be ~30–50% more efficient than today’s gasoline engines — i.e., about as efficient as a diesel engine, but much cleaner. BMW even hopes to raise the peak fuel-to-output-shaft efficiency of new hydrogen internal-combustion engines to ~50%.Converting existing cars to hydrogen fueling, however, would capture a much smaller efficiency gain. Enthusiasts of such fuel-system retrofits have not convincingly explained how an internal-combustion-engine car could get a decent driving range from the hydrogen without using such a big hydrogen tank as to leave insufficient space for people and cargo."
      • This is my main concern for non fuel cell applications
    • " ...in buildings. There, ultra-reliableand digital-quality fuel-cell power, the reuse of “waste” heat for heating and cooling, and competing with delivered electricity (a very costly form of energy154) can make even today’s costly handmade fuel cells cost-effective today if properly sited and used"
      • Need to see how this compares to modern battery systems
    • "California has largely abandoned its mandate to introduce battery-electric cars because battery technology, as RMI predicted, was overtaken by hybrid technology, which will in turn be trumped by fuel cells. Battery-electric cars are a valid concept for niche markets, but (as Professor P.D. van der Koogh of the Delft University of Technology remarked) are “cars for carryingmainly batteries — but not very far and not very fast, or else they would have to carry even more batteries.” Although batteries’ energy density, life, and cost can be considerably improved, it is still probably easier to make a good fuel cell than a good battery, and the comparative advantage of the technologies that compete with batteries is probably more likely to expand than to shrink."
      • That aged poorly...

Resources

• Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy - [31]

Links

• Solar Hydrogen Production
• Hydrogen Production