[science2000]

I've recentlearned in Organic Chem that Platinum and Palladium are catalysts in many organic reactions because they absorb large volumes of hydrogen for some odd reason, and they can add hydrogen to compounds and stuff.
I don't know alot about fuel cells, but maybe Pt has a similar function.

Platinum will glow red in the presence of methanol vapor, it catalyzes it's transformation into formaldahyde. Some metals just have weird properties. Why the expensive ones, I dunno.

[Grumples]

To reiterate what chrataxe said, catalysts are not used up in a reaction- they are both a reactant and a product of a multi-step reaction, and therefore drop out, i.e.

A+B ----->C+D
E+C------>A+F

Since the A and the C are both reactants and products, they will drop out, leaving a net equation of:

B+E------>D+F

A is a catalyst, since it is consumed, then recreated at the end of the reaction, as if it had never been a part at all.  C is an intermediate, since it is created midway through and used up later on.  If you can figure out the pathway of the reaction (i.e. the sequence of smaller reactions), then you can figure out what (if anything) is a catalyst.

[buckminsterfullerene]

well CO₂ may not be as dangerous as it seems but when you take into consideration that the sources from where it comes from actually relase other compounds such as sulfur, or carbon monoxide, or nitrogen, will mean that the temperature would increase faster, taking into consideration that nitrogen absorbs about 40 times more heat than carbon dioxide.  CO₂ really is not a problem it comes back to nature through the carbon cycle, as a source of food for plants which will later relase oxygen, but deforestation is leaving more CO₂ in the air.

as for P-man, what do you need Nafion for?

ohh and i have decided to store the hydrogen in a plastic container, now i am wondering how to compress the hydrogen.  my idea would be at this current moment to put dry ice (CO₂(s)) in order to decrease the temperature to store more hydrogen in the container.  I agree NaBH₄ may work, but i am trying to enter the hydrogen powered car in a competition and i do not think that they would allow it.  Does anyone have any bright ideas on how i could compress the hydrogen??

[buckminsterfullerene]

transfer the hydrogen as a solid hydride.  NaBH4 is the first example that comes to mind.

http://www.fuelcellstore.com/cgi-bin/fuelweb/view=Item/cat=5/product=128

amazing stuff.... 120 liters of hydrogen, does anyone know what it is made off, what is alloy L, M, or H???

[constant thinker]

Formaldahyde.... Doesn't that stuff cause cancer. I don't think people would be to excited about driving around with something that has the potential to give you cancer. That's not important though.

I read somewhere, probably PopSci, that one process for a hydrogen car used methane gas or some other source of fuel. I don't remember exactly. Anyways the process involved breaking up your source of fuel (which in and of itself releases energy I'm someone could figure out how to take that energy to continue the break up or use for the car). This gives you Hydrogen and oxygen is brought in from the outside. The C was still converted to CO2 though I believe. You obviously get water vapor also.

This process sounds a lot more efficient than an internal combustion engine to me.

[mike]

Formaldahyde.... Doesn't that stuff cause cancer. I don't think people would be to excited about driving around with something that has the potential to give you cancer. That's not important though.

Yes formaldehyde is a cancer suspect agent.

People already do lots of things that can cause cancer.

[P-man]

Anyways the process involved breaking up your source of fuel (which in and of itself releases energy I'm someone could figure out how to take that energy to continue the break up or use for the car). This gives you Hydrogen and oxygen is brought in from the outside.

I've been worjing on a basically self-propelled system with on-board electrolysis. The electricity made by the fuel cell is used partly to run the engine and partly to make more hydrogen. I dunno if it would work but if it does it would be very useful on longer voyages.

Anyways I've been inquiring more on different catalysts and fell accross a nickel-aluminum alloy, mostly nickel. Does anyone know anything about these types of catalysts?

[Borek]

I've been worjing on a basically self-propelled system with on-board electrolysis. The electricity made by the fuel cell is used partly to run the engine and partly to make more hydrogen. I dunno if it would work but if it does it would be very useful on longer voyages.

Electricity from the fuell cell will be better spent running electric motor than for electrolysis. Additional step means energy loses.

[P-man]

I guess so, but if you had good enough fuel cells... I dunno, there are some technological barriers to overcome with the system.

[buckminsterfullerene]

a real good fuel cell will convert and generate energy at 90% efficiency (very high), if you used the energy collected in the hydrogen fuel cell to simply break more water you would be still losing energy, and you are adding a motor to the equation.  i still say that aluminum-nickel alloy would still not be as good as platinum, especially carrying out the process that you are thinkin about, using the same energy to break apart more hydrogen, i think it would be easier to get a very small solar panel, which would only weight a few grams, and would carry out the process very efficiently.

well i found one of the components in the storage tank found here:
http://www.fuelcellstore.com/cgi-bin/fuelweb/view=Item/cat=5/product=128

its palladium at 99.99% purity.  the amazing aspect of palladium is that it is capable of storing 900 times its own volume of hydrogen.  such that if i am not mistaken 1 gram would hold 900 cm³ of H₂

now there is something else that other researches have been investigating, and that is graphite.  one site gave the figures of holding hydrogen as 30 liters per gram of graphite separate at something like 1 billionth of a meter (not sure about the separate part).  when i did the calculation i got one almost impossible to believe answer, which makes me think that i am doing something terribly wrong and that i have to review the chapter dealing with volume..
1 liter is 1000cm³ right?
if so then that would mean that graphite is capable of holding 30000cm³ of H₂, which means that it is a very inexpensive material capable of holding more than 1 mole of hydrogen for 1/12^th of a mole of graphite, and that if used as a storage container it would solve one of the major problems with fuel cells and gives a solution.  but my question now is how would the hydrogen be extracted, do you need heat? if so how much? and what kind of container is used to hold palladium or graphite and hydrogen at the same time?  If someone can help me out here it would greatly be appreciated, trying to make a car as a school project and it would really be helpful to know all this stuff?

[buckminsterfullerene]

Formaldahyde.... Doesn't that stuff cause cancer. I don't think people would be to excited about driving around with something that has the potential to give you cancer. That's not important though.

I read somewhere, probably PopSci, that one process for a hydrogen car used methane gas or some other source of fuel. I don't remember exactly. Anyways the process involved breaking up your source of fuel (which in and of itself releases energy I'm someone could figure out how to take that energy to continue the break up or use for the car). This gives you Hydrogen and oxygen is brought in from the outside. The C was still converted to CO2 though I believe. You obviously get water vapor also.

even the junk food that you would eat, packaged or anything for that matter that has artificial color, well this artificial color such as Blue-26 and stuff like that, well all that is a cancer causing agent, when eaten in large enough amounts it causes cancer.

you are talking about a methanol fuel cell, interesting thing about those cells is that they are going to be implemented in cell phones and laptops, they do not cause CO₂ they simply use the methane as a catalyst, and theoretically it would increase time that you could have the laptop on for as long as 10 extra hours and is almost as thin as a paper.  fuel cells and the hydrogen economy is really going to boom now..
if only president Bush gave more than simply, what was it 1 billion over the next 5 years, that is only 200 million per year as compared to the 8.5 billion that he gave to start drilling for oil in a preservation in Alaska.  Japan and Europe are beating us in technological advances in the renewable energy field, France with its plans to make a gigantic fussion generator (yes fusion, with deuterium). oh well

[P-man]

1 liter is 1000cm3 right?

Actually it's 1000 cm³ of water.

[buckminsterfullerene]

Actually it's 1000 cm³ of water.

same difference .. right?

[P-man]

Maybe. Whatever.