Doug, other than electric methods are there bio methods of extracting
hydrogen?
Since storage of hydrogen is volume intensive perhaps it is more

practical

for an airplane with a lot of unused volume in the aft fuselage as

compared to

say a car. I think you might still have a range problem.

Paul Lamar

Paul yes now some processors in Japan are drawing H2 from algae. Perhaps

not

practical unless the algae is also used for food  somewhere. Space

station

applications no doubt.  Bio gas, methane gas or CH4 can be cracked

fairly

easily to extract the hydrogen.

Storage for H2 is the challenge.  Storing it in a an airplane doesn't

make

sense because it either has to be super cold and/or compressed which

equals

heavy tanks, or obtained by splitting water using some interesting ultra
high frequency electronics. Another way we are pursuing is to obtain the

gas

on demand (just in time) from reacting a alkaloid metal with water in an
controlled airless chamber. We test it in a car this autumn. I hesitate

to

fly with this mechanism though. Zoom zoom, Boom boom.

The 'from water' method makes some sense but the only trouble is that

the

inventor suddenly died last year about the time he was negotiating to
license the technology to some people on this side of the pond. If you

like

conspiracy theories this is one story with made for movie material.  I

have

done some research in ultrasonics for air cleaning and can understand

how

water can be disassociated this way but in my experience I had accurate
control over the water surface level. I can't verified that the

particular

inventor in question actually succeeded in his work so don't expect to

fill

your gas tanks with water anytime soon.

Perhaps Mazda is injecting hydrogen directly into the upper part of the
combustion chamber in addition to gasoline may have some benefits.
Hydrogen's burn velocity is very rapid.  I still have a lot to learn

about

the rotary so I'll stop making any speculations.  Now I am searching for
info on how to make a well instrumented dyno get a not so used 20B to

test

and start trying to answer some questions about fuels and fuel burn

rate.

For Jesse

Do you have the Mazda tech paper on the hydrogen powered rotary.
Japan SAE C389/233  US SAE 925011 I think.

"Hydrogen fuelled rotaty engine.  T Teramoto, Y Takamori, & K Morimoto.

Paul Lamar

All of these methods of extracting hydrogen from water require more energy
to tear the bond apart, than you will realize in the burning of the hydrogen
(in a 30 percent engine? - if that). The cracking of hdrocarbons makes as
much of the "dreaded green house gas" as burning the hydrocarbon.
Making hydrogen by disolving old zinc fruitjar lids in acid - we did
that in grade school - youve got to be kidding. Back during one of the early
oil crisis we studied using low drain time nuclear electricity to make
oxygen and hydrogen to top the steam by superheating during peak loads
and the answer kept coming back it was cheaper to make the nuke bigger
and throw away surplus electricity if we had to. in spite of the eco fans,
nuke is the only way we can support the out of control birth rate.
Any hydrogen scheme that is soliciting investers is verging
on criminal fraud. Vance

 
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