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Start-up coins new way to harvest hydrogen
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Michael Lefenfeld and James Dye of Signa Chemistry wanted to make rooms smell better. Instead, they stumbled on a way that could make hydrogen fuel cells a practical reality.
New York City-based Signa says it has come up with a new–and fairly efficient–way to produce hydrogen, one of the vexing problems for boosters of the hydrogen economy. Conceivably, the company’s technology could be incorporated into fuel cells that could generate enough electricity to run a cell phone for a week, or a car in emergency situations. The company’s techniques could also reduce cost and complexity for pharmaceutical manufacturers and petroleum refiners.
The key is sodium, the ornery alkali metal that bursts into sparks when dunked in water. The sodium/water reaction can generate hydrogen (along with other byproducts). But, because of the sparks and heat, industrial companies shy away from it.
Signa has devised a way to mix sodium with silica gel or crystalline silicon into a powder that essentially strips electrons from the sodium molecules in advance and stores it. When water is introduced, the chemical reaction proceeds calmly. (The harvested hydrogen molecules in turn undergo a second reaction: electrons are stripped from the molecule and get channeled into electrical power.)
By Michael Kanellos
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
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