
Originally Posted by
spidergoat
Making an engine more efficient by adding a regenerative braking feature is a good idea, but it still does not solve the problem that hydrogen is too expensive. The price isn't so much the issue as the fact that cracking hydrogen from water, or extracting it from hydrocarbons is a losing proposition in terms of energy spent vs. energy gained. Plants are able to crack water through photosynthesis, but they are getting the energy from sunlight. Somehow, we will need to use another energy source, probably nuclear or solar, and use it to collect hydrogen. But, wouldn't it be smarter to use solar energy directly with improved photovoltaics and passive solar? Or set up an electric train system with nuclear, wind, wave, or hydro generating electricity? Are we trying too hard to maintain a treasured cultural artifact, the automobile, at the expense of better ideas?
There is another alternative. I got feedback on this idea suggesting that the electrical energy that it takes to transform water into hydrogen and oxygen is too much, and it still might not be practical.
I thought of a way to produce hydrogen much cheaper using less electrical energy.
Practical Hydrogen production:
Use radioactivity to change water into hydrogen peroxide [H2O2], then use electrolysis to change the hydrogen peroxide into hydrogen and oxygen. It should take less electrical energy to change H2O2 into hydrogen and oxygen than it does to change H2O into hydrogen and oxygen. Nuclear waste could be used to provide the radioactive material to do this. The hydrogen and oxygen separation facility could be placed close to a nuclear power plant. The cooling water that is used to cool down the atomic pile is subjected to high levels of radiation, and some of that must be changed into hydrogen peroxide. Run the cooling water from the nuclear power plant to the hydrogen and oxygen separation facility. Separate the hydrogen peroxide from the water (if you can economically do that), and use electolysis sending electrical energy into the hydrogen peroxide and separate that into hydrogen and oxygen. If you can't sepearate the H2O2 from the H2O, then use the electrolysis on the mixture; it would still take less electricity for separtation because some of the electrical energy is going to go into H2O2 molecules.
Without using a nuclear facility you could just put radioactive waste into a large pool of water. Allow the radioactivity to change the water into hydrogen peroxide, and then separate the water from the hydrogen peroxide, and do the electrolysis on the hydrogen peroxide, separating it into hydrogen and oxygen. This should make hydrogen a practical fuel to use in engines world wide, making both hydrogen and oxygen much cheaper to produce.
[As far as energy is conscerned, H2O2 is like an intermediate energy stage before you get to water. It should take much less electrical energy to convert that to hydrogen and oxygen. The energy from the radioactive waste is totally free, provided by the nuclear decay of the radioactive material.]
Mechanism, water to hydrogen peroxide:
Radiation can directly interact with a molecule and damage it directly. Because of the abundance of water in the body, radiation is more likely to interact with water. When radiation interacts with water, it produces labile chemical species (free radicals) such as hydronium (H.) and hydroyxls (.OH). Free radicals can produce compounds such as hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) which subsequently exert chemical toxicity.
http://radiologyresearch.org/radiat...t_chapter_2.htm
Radiation is alpha (fast proton), beta (fast electron), gamma (electromagnetic radiation)
It looks like an alpha particle, [proton], knocks a hydrogen atom (which is a proton with an electron orbiting it) off of the H2O molecule, changing it to an OH and an H. These free radicals (highly interactive) react with H2O molecules, changing them to H2O2. That seems to be the mechanism based on what I read from that article.
A long time ago I heard that hydrogen peroxide poisoning is a part of radiation sickness.