sepia
05-17-2005, 02:18 PM
Source: Wired News (http://www.wired.com/news/)
By Mark Anderson
16 May 2005
On the road to petroleum independence and greenhouse-gas reduction, the old internal combustion engine will someday need to be scrapped. That will only occur when the alternative -- most likely the hydrogen-powered fuel cell -- is as cheap and convenient to use as the conventional automobile is today.
It's perhaps the toughest challenge in fuel-cell research: designing a safe, lightweight and compact hydrogen fuel tank. Two recent papers, published in the April 22 and May 6 issues of the journal Physical Review Letters, find the most promising hydrogen storage medium is in something called carbon nanostructures.
Just as the semiconductor revolution became possible when wafers of silicon were doped with other elements, the hydrogen revolution could be realized with the help of tiny balls or tubes of carbon decorated with periodic defects in their structure. Those defects are metallic elements that attract hydrogen to the nanostructures like Velcro. In the May 6 paper, the hypothesized fuel tank would be filled with carbon nanotubes coated with the metal titanium. The April 22 paper proposes a structure involving carbon buckyballs and another metal such as scandium.
In both cases, the experience of gassing up the car would be similar to today, although the microscale goings-on would be markedly different.
Read More (http://www.wired.com/news/planet/0,2782,67512,00.html)
By Mark Anderson
16 May 2005
On the road to petroleum independence and greenhouse-gas reduction, the old internal combustion engine will someday need to be scrapped. That will only occur when the alternative -- most likely the hydrogen-powered fuel cell -- is as cheap and convenient to use as the conventional automobile is today.
It's perhaps the toughest challenge in fuel-cell research: designing a safe, lightweight and compact hydrogen fuel tank. Two recent papers, published in the April 22 and May 6 issues of the journal Physical Review Letters, find the most promising hydrogen storage medium is in something called carbon nanostructures.
Just as the semiconductor revolution became possible when wafers of silicon were doped with other elements, the hydrogen revolution could be realized with the help of tiny balls or tubes of carbon decorated with periodic defects in their structure. Those defects are metallic elements that attract hydrogen to the nanostructures like Velcro. In the May 6 paper, the hypothesized fuel tank would be filled with carbon nanotubes coated with the metal titanium. The April 22 paper proposes a structure involving carbon buckyballs and another metal such as scandium.
In both cases, the experience of gassing up the car would be similar to today, although the microscale goings-on would be markedly different.
Read More (http://www.wired.com/news/planet/0,2782,67512,00.html)