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Salt Lake. firm bridles hydrogen – Ceramatec Inc. – INEEL charts a path to cheaper hydrogen fuel

A Salt Lake-based company may someday be able to say it played a huge part in developing a hydrogen-based energy alternative.

Ceramatec Inc. cells and plates, invented for use by NASA, are a key ingredient for researchers studying ways to produce hydrogen in large amounts using electrolysis employing high-temperature steam from a next-generation nuclear reactor system. It’s a process that someday could result in "dirty" crude oil being used for vehicle fuel, or ultimately hydrogen for fuel cells to motor cars down the road.

By Brice Wallace
Deseret Morning News

http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,595108887,00.html

"Clearly, hydrogen production by high-temperature electrolysis can have wide-reaching impacts on energy and the environment, and it will require demonstrating the technology at a much larger scale than what we’ve currently done," said Joseph Hartvigsen, leading the project work at Ceramatec.

A cell unit "stack," tiny enough to be held in one’s hand, has demonstrated the process on a small scale, but the Ceramatec-led research team will scale high-temperature electrolysis cells to an industrial-size device. Ceramatec’s chief executive officer, Ashok Joshi, said the cell size to be developed over the next three years will be 100 times larger.

A new high-temperature reactor that could produce both electricity and heat for hydrogen production could be operating in a little more than a decade at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory.

"The Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy Science and Technology wants to demonstrate commercial-scale hydrogen production both using the heat and electricity from a nuclear energy system by 2017 — just 12 years from now," said Michael Anderson, the hydrogen project lead at the U.S. Department of Energy.

"The particular technology being recognized here today is one that DOE is evaluating for the ultimate demonstration of commercial-scale, high-temperature electrolysis for the production of hydrogen. . . . So, this important milestone today that we’re talking about, the hydrogen production . . . is a significant step on the trail to this commercial demonstration. This proves the function and effectiveness of the technology at the smaller scale."

Using electric energy to split water into hydrogen and oxygen has been around for decades, but cost has been a big bugaboo, leaving it on the back burner when it comes to fuel production. But high-temperature electrolysis likely would cut the amount of electric power needed in the process by replacing some of the electricity with heat energy, such as high-temperature steam from a next-generation nuclear reactor.

In simple terms, steam would travel over a paper-thin ceramic sheet that would separate the oxygen from the hydrogen when electricity is applied. Researchers have shown that hydrogen can be produced "at commercially attractive rates in a very small unit and at conditions that are typical of a high-temperature, helium-cooled reactor," said J. Stephen Herring, consulting engineer at INEEL.

The resulting hydrogen would be used initially to upgrade dwindling, poor-quality crude oil reserves for use as vehicle fuels. Later it would be used to convert carbon dioxide emissions into vehicle fuels. Still later, pure hydrogen could be used in vehicle fuel cells.

Researchers said the technology would lessen the country’s reliance on fossil fuels while avoiding the production of greenhouse gas emissions.

"As citizens, we’re all concerned with economical, environmental and global political talk associated with supplying mankind’s energy needs and are intrigued by the possibility that hydrogen might fill an increasingly important role in addressing these challenges," Hartvigsen said.

Still, a society filled with hydrogen fuel cell cars is far into the future, in part because of storage and distribution issues. Herring noted that today’s auto infrastructure has been 100 years in the making.

"The first steps in doing this, though, are developing technologies to produce the hydrogen efficiently, economically and reliably," he said.

A $2.6 million federal program to scale the high-temperature electrolysis cells to an industrial size involves Ceramatec, INEEL, the University of Washington and Hoeganaes Corp.

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INEEL charts a path to cheaper hydrogen fuel

Project could lead to cleaner air, less use of petroleum

http://www.idahostatesman.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20041130/NEWS02/411300344/1029

Mark Thiessen
The Associated Press
Edition Date: 11-30-2004

SALT LAKE CITY — If hydrogen created in a nuclear reactor ever winds up fueling cars and homes and businesses decades from now, it might all owe its thanks to the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory and a pottery kiln in Salt Lake City.

The INEEL and a private electrochemistry company on Monday announced they had been selected to lead a $2.6 million project to develop hydrogen by high temperature electrolysis.

If successful, their efforts could lead to fuel that could reduce the county’s reliance on fossil fuels and cut greenhouse gas emissions.

High temperature electrolysis, once thought to be cost prohibitive, could become economically feasible by using the next generation of nuclear reactors to split water into hydrogen and oxygen using electric energy, officials with both Ceramatec Inc., and the INEEL said.

"We have been able to show that we can produce hydrogen at commercially attractive rates in a very small unit and at conditions that are typical of a high temperature, helium-cooled reactor," said INEEL researcher Steve Herring.

The sample, about the size of a paperback book, had its successful test in the kiln, used to simulate high temperatures that would be created in the so-called Generation IV nuclear reactors, about 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit.

The Department of Energy has given INEEL a 10-year mission to develop the new generation reactor that would be safer, leave less hazardous waste and produce hydrogen to fuel vehicles to the future.

An INEEL spokesman said the development is "a crucial first step" toward large-scale production of hydrogen from water, rather than fossil fuels.

During the test, the sample placed inside the kiln had a paper-thin sheet of ceramic inside it. At the elevated temperatures, oxygen can migrate through the membrane. When an electric voltage is applied, it extracts oxygen from the stream, leaving hydrogen behind. The oxygen continues through the membrane and is discharged on the other side.

There are other methods that could be used to produce the high temperatures needed for the separation process, like harnessing wind power with solar concentrators, but using a nuclear reactor is the only one being considered by this team.

Researchers said the process of obtaining hydrogen by splitting water using electric energy has been known for about 150 years, but costs in terms of dollars and electric energy made it an unpopular choice.

"High temperature electrolysis has the potential to change that by reducing the amount of electrical energy required and using a proportion of thermal energy in its place," said Joseph Hartvigsen with Ceramatec.

Ceramatec and INEEL will partner with Hoeganaes Corp. in New Jersey and the University of Washington for the project to increase the sample size 100-fold over the next three years.

The Department of Energy is hoping for a demonstration of commercial-scale hydrogen production using the process by 2017. The government is considering building the necessary next-generation power plant at INEEL, researcher Michael Anderson said.

The small-scale experiment "is a significant step on the trail to this commercial-scale demonstration," Anderson said. It’s also part of the energy department’s goal of developing the technology needed for commercially viable hydrogen.

Researchers admit it would be decades if not a generation before hydrogen power and its infrastructure is as commonplace as the one in place today for petroleum-based energy, such as refineries and gas stations.

It’s estimated that a 300 megawatt reactor could provide the power to run 300,000 homes or provide transportation for about 500,000 people. Herring estimated that Americans use a gallon of gasoline per person per day.

"That’s a quarter of a billion gallons of gasoline use, so it’s important to make a dent in that," he said.

On the Net

• Ceramatec Inc.: http://www.ceramatec.com/

• INEEL: http://www.inel.gov/

• Energy Department: http://www.energy.gov/engine/ content.do

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