Can Gasoline Jump-Start Hydrogen?

Researchers say a gizmo called a reformer can extract the clean fuel from good old unleaded — and give fuel-cell cars double the mileage

Environmentalists dream of energy-efficient cars that run on hydrogen, with tailpipes spewing out nothing more noxious than water vapor. Judging from the popularity of Toyota’s (TM ) Prius hybrid — a kind of car with both an electric motor and a gasoline engine — a fuel-cell-powered all-electric car that gets equal or better mileage from hydrogen would seem a surefire hit.

By Otis Port in New York BusinessWeek.com

http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/may2004/tc2004056_5490.htm

The big drawback: Where do you go to fill ‘er up with hydrogen? How about any existing gas station. Gasoline has plenty of hydrogen locked up inside it, and researchers have developed so-called reformers that can extract it. There’s a hitch, however: Reformers take 15 minutes to produce enough hydrogen to back the car out of the garage. Nobody wants a car that takes that long to start.

What’s needed is a hydrogen-age version of the automatic starter invented by Charles Kettering. It quickly replaced those antique hand-crank starters, starting with a Cadillac in 1911.

MOLECULE CRACKING. Researchers at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory think they have it. They’re developing an under-the-hood steam reformer on steroids. "It can produce large amounts of hydrogen from gasoline vapors in only 12 seconds," says chief engineer Greg Whyatt. The key: pumping a vapor-and-steam mixture through myriad microchannels. In those tiny, confined spaces, catalysts work their magic extremely rapidly, cracking the molecules of gasoline and water to release hydrogen.

Even more magical: The extracted hydrogren actually has a higher energy value than gasoline, thanks in part to the extra hydrogen atoms liberated from the steam. That means a big bump in mileage. In fact, says Whyatt, "compared to an internal-combustion engine, we’re projecting that a fuel-cell-powered car with our steam reformer would get at least twice the mileage" from the same amount of gasoline.

Since fuel cells generate clean electricity through a chemical reaction with no combustion involved, fuel-cell cars could substantially reduce the world’s consumption of oil while drastically curbing pollution.

SHRINKING ACT. The first microchannel reformer won’t show up in a car, though. Detroit doesn’t make such fundamental changes quickly — and startup Velocys Inc. is about a year away from unveiling a giant steam reformer. Velocys was spun off by Pacific Northwest Lab in 2001 to commercialize big reformers for industrial-scale fuel-cell generators that squeeze enough juice from hydrogen to light a factory or small town.

Shrinking a microchannel steam reformer into a bread-box-size system for cars has been a lot tougher, says Whyatt. Ultimately, he adds, a reformer that can supply hydrogen to a 50-kilowatt fuel cell should take up less than one cubic foot. It may take a couple years to perfect. But by yearend, Whyatt expects to have a small prototype — sufficient for a 2-kw fuel cell — ready for Detroit to check out.