What are the fuels of the future? Seven representative carbon- and nitrogen-based fuels are evaluated on an energy basis in a power-to-fuel-to-power analysis as possible future chemical hydrogen-storage media. It is intriguing to consider that a nitrogen economy, where hydrogen obtained from water splitting is chemically stored on abundant nitrogen in the form of a nontoxic and safe nitrogen-ba...

Our work focuses on the feasibility of utilizing organic fuels for virtual hydrogen flow cell battery systems, based on thermodynamic considerations of fuel hydrogenation/dehydrogenation reactions. An assessment of the energy density and open circuit potentials (OCPs) as determined by the structure of carbocyclic and heterocyclic saturated hydrocarbons and their dehydrogenation products has bee...

Hydrogen, a clean-burning fuel, is of key importance to various industrial applications, including fuel cells and in the aerospace and automotive industries. However, hydrogen gas is odorless, colorless, and highly flammable; thus appropriate safety protocol implementation and monitoring are essential. Highly sensitive hydrogen leak detection and surveillance sensor systems are needed; addition...

The dehydrogenation of a Jet A hydrocarbon mixture was investigated for the production of hydrogen for fuel cell applications. This process differs from steam/partial oxidation reforming of hydrocarbons in that the hydrogen produced is free of CO, and therefore can be used in low temperature fuel cells without further purification. Because of their relative importance with respect to the spectr...

This work was funded by the Hydrogen Program Office of the U.S. Department of Energy under Grant No. DE-FG01-99EE35099 and represents the second task of three to be completed under this contract. The first task presented a broad overview of the costs for creating infrastructures to supply direct hydrogen, methanol, and gasoline to support fuel cell vehicles (FCV’s). A conclusion of the report r...

This thesis studies a hybrid PEM fuel cell system for use in low power, long life sensor networks. PEM fuel cells offer high efficiency and environmental friendliness but have not been widely adopted due to cost, reliability, and the problem of hydrogen storage. This thesis focuses on the problem of hydrogen storage. Lithium hydride is selected for study because of its high hydrogen content and...

This paper presents a hydrogen powered hybrid solid oxide fuel cell-steam turbine (SOFC-ST) system and studies its optimal operating conditions. This type of installation can be very appropriate to complement the intermittent generation of renewable energies, such as wind generation. A dynamic model of an alternative hybrid SOFC-ST configuration that is especially suited to work with hydrogen i...

This paper addresses the impacts of environmental legislation and vehicle emissions on the future of alternative fuels sucl~ as methanol, compressed natural gas, propane, electricity, hydrogen, and reformulated gasoline in the transportation industry, and it discusses the advantages and disadvantages of each type of fuel in terms of fuel efficiency, fuel cost, environmental impacts, and vehicle...

This race is particularly visible in the automotive field. Companies around the globe are vying to build a new, less polluting automobile engine that does not run on gasoline. In the US, for instance, General Motors (GM) spent over US$1 billion on developing an electric car that runs on a hydrogen fuel cell. It originally chose hydrogen fuel as the basis for the engine. Yet mass production of a...

The startup characteristics of plasmatron reformers with gasoline fuel for the generation of hydrogen rich gas is discussed. A brief set of experiments has been carried out at a single fuel and air flow rate. The air/fuel mixture preparation, especially the implications of the gasoline vaporization, has been modeled using a CFD code.