Research into Hydrogen Storage

[SwampDonkey]

Breakthrough in the safe storage of hydrogen for on demand uses

"The challenge is to find a safer, more efficient and economical way to store hydrogen so that it can be released on demand," explained chemist Sean McGrady, the lead researcher on the project. "The way to do this is to turn hydrogen into a compound — a solid — so you can use it when you want, safely, in the amount you want."

[Ron Wenrich]

That's almost old technology.  Stan Ovshinsky already has a system to store hydrogen as a solid and has been testing hybrid cars using this technology. 

http://www.ovonic-hydrogen.com/home/home.htm

[SwampDonkey]

Ron it seems you are right. Or it's a very similar technology. Unless there is something unique that I'm not reading.

[treebucker]

Hum, seems I saw one a few years ago that was quite different. It used boron. The boron combined with the volatile hydrogen (in the tank of the vehicle) and was rendered into an inert compound. When the fuel cell needed hydrogen the compond was broken back apart using a catalyst. The hydrogen fed into the fuel cell and the boron sent back to be reused. The process extracted the amount demanded on a continous basis so the only on-board hydrogen was in the lines feeding from the converter into the fuel cell. They showed a car that was equiped with a working prototype. They were very confident in its cost and practicability. I never did hear any more about it after that.

[dboyt]

You can easily make hydrogen easier to store by combining it with carbon.  The process can yield anything from simple (methane) to complex (propane, alcohols).  My question is, what advantage does hydrogen have over batteries?  When you come down to it, hydrogen is simply a means of storing the electircal energy it took to break apart water.  Seems like we're being told to be patient and wait for hydrogen technology, when viable solutions are right under our nose.

[Modat22]

I've read that halides are great for storing hydrogen. You pump hydrogen into canisters containing halides at a cool temperature and it gets absorbed by a crazy extent at no pressure. When you need the hydrogen you switch on a heater to heat the halides and the hydrogen is released at a pressure. When the heat is removed the pressurized hydrogen is reabsorbed. Problem is halides don't like oxygen or CO2, as more O2 contamination occurs the halides loose the ability to absorb hydrogen.