Now, hydrogen beads car-fuel that ‘can cut CO2 emissions by 30pc’

By ANI
Wednesday, February 2, 2011

LONDON - Researchers at Cella Energy in Didcot, UK, are developing nanobeads of ammonia-borane hydride which when used as car fuel, can cut greenhouse emission by 30 percent.

Storing liquid hydrogen in cars is a problem because it requires low temperatures and very large tanks.

The hydrides being developed by the team are protected from oxygen in the air by a porous polymer coating, meaning the fuel is safe to use.

And when heated to around 80 degrees Celsius they discharge their hydrogen content in just a few minutes, overcoming the problem of conventional hydrides, that release their hydrogen content very slowly, over around 30 to 60 minutes, making them unsuitable for use in cars.

“So you could pump them into the car, heat up the hydrides and drive off using up the hydrogen,” New Scientist quoted Stephen Bennington, chief scientific officer, as saying.

“Then the waste beads would be directed into a separate tank and taken out of the car to be rehydrogenated elsewhere.”

“If you added 20 per cent of this additive, you would remove 30 per cent of the fuel’s carbon dioxide emissions,” he added.

Bennington admitted that studies are yet to confirm how much of the liquid can be added to fuels without affecting their viscosity.

The company is also working with researchers at the University of Oxford and University College London to investigate other hydride materials they can encapsulate in their porous polymer nano-beads. (ANI)

Filed under: Science and Technology

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