Re: SUNFLOWER OIL TO POWER FUTURE CARS

From: pragmatist (ilsdesign_at_netscape.net)
Date: 09/06/04 

Date: 5 Sep 2004 21:14:40 -0700

usenet@mantra.com (Dr. Jai Maharaj) wrote in message news:<HdX6j48wtFQ9@Kl866m6nneiJCG>...
> Sunflower oil to power future cars
>
> Producing hydrogen from sunflower oil could
> provide a more environmentally friendly alternative
> by reducing pollutants while offering an abundant,
> low-cost and renewable resource.
>

-Snip--------------

> In the prototype device, which can fit on a standard lab
> bench, water and oil are pumped into the unit and passed
> through a pre-heater to vaporize them. The mixture is
> broken down in the presence of heat to generate carbon
> dioxide, hydrogen, methane and carbon monoxide through a
> process called steam reforming.
>
> Chemical manoeuvres
>
> The catalysts, which are key to the process, orchestrate
> a series of chemical manoeuvres that ultimately result in
> an increased hydrogen yield. First, one of the catalysts
> (the nickel-based unit) absorbs the oxygen from the air
> and this interaction heats up the reactor bed of the
> device. Simultaneously, in the presence of heat, another
> catalyst (a carbon-based adsorbent) releases any carbon
> dioxide previously trapped in the device.
>
> Once the reactor bed is hot enough and all the carbon
> dioxide has been released and expelled from the reactor,
> the mixture of vaporized oil and water are then fed into
> the reactor chamber. The heat from the reactor bed breaks
> down the carbon-hydrogen bonds in the vaporized oil.
> Water (steam) binds its oxygen to the carbon, releasing
> its hydrogen and yielding carbon monoxide. Carbon
> monoxide and water vapour tend to form carbon dioxide and
> hydrogen when in the presence of each other. This overall
> process results in a cyclical production of hydrogen,
> Dupont says, adding that the process can be modified to
> allow continuous hydrogen production.
>
> High purity
>
> The researchers achieved a hydrogen purity of 90 per
> cent, which is more efficient than current hydrogen
> generators that only achieve a hydrogen purity of about
> 70 per cent in laboratory studies. Carbon dioxide and
> methane, the by-products of the sunflower oil
> transformation are generated in roughly equal
> proportions, the researchers say.

-----Snip----------------------

>
 If the process uses energy, and releases carbon dioxide anyway,
where is its benefit to the environment as a whole?
 Hydrogen fuel makes no sense at all as an energy system if it uses
more total energy and still polutes the atmosphere, probably more than
an efficient I.C. powerplant providing the same output at point of
use.
 Why do you find this so hard to understand?
 Perhaps because you are fascinated by new bright shiney objects?
 Or maybe you feel that by increasing the cost of energy beyond the
means
of most of the population you can thereby lower the total energy used
and
thus the decrease total polution produced?
 Has it occurred to you that there is probably a good reason why you
don't
see diesels using sunflower, or other vegetable oils directly?
 They could, you know, and at far higher efficiencies than a plant
making hydrogen from the oil.
 Perhaps it's too expensive, even as a base fuel before adding the
expense
and bother of converting it to hydrogen and losing more than half the
energy value of the fuel in the process?

 At present this hydrogen fuel system hype is nothing more than an
excuse
to make money, and until the hydrogen can be produced without the
release
of greeenhouse gas it will remain so.

Pragmatist - "Think, it's not illegal yet." -- George Clinton

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