Mr Hydrogen

10/10/2024

I saw the play, "Rent" last week, and it was excellent. Good music, uplifting story .. raunchy, but nuanced. I'd never seen it, and was pleased to find it was not the simplistic political mush we often get. Well acted, cheap too, at Stagecrafter's.

02/19/2024

Making hydrogen in central plants in Mexico is fraught; the country can just take your plant. The same happens in Russia, Venezuela, or any country that desires it. Smaller, mobile plats are less likely to be seized.

Mexico's government has issued a decree for the expropriation of a hydrogen plant situated within a Pemex oil refinery, which had been previously sold to French company Air Liquide during the prior administration.

12/09/2022

Here's something I've been working on, and that I filed a patent application on. It's an energy efficient way to recycle the wasted fuel in the exhaust of a solid oxide fuel cell.

My favorite fuel cells burn hydrogen-rich hydrocarbon fuels, like methane (natural gas) instead of pure hydrogen. Methane is far more energy dense, and costs far less than hydrogen per energy conte…

03/01/2022

The Felicity Ace has sunk along with at least 4,000 luxury German vehicles on the way to the US. First evidence is that lithium batteries aboard some of the vehicles are to blame for the fire that caused the sinking. It does not give me much confidence in German EVs.

It was being towed when it went down.

10/22/2021

An essay on hydrogen removal and the thermodynamics behind our low temperature hydrogen removal catalysts.

Platinum catalysts can be very effective at removing hydrogen from air. Platinum promotes the irreversible reaction of hydrogen with oxygen to make water: H2 + 1/2 O2 –> H2O, a reaction th…

09/03/2021

Gas prices have doubled, hydrogen is unchanged and battery prices have dropped. My analysis now is that battery-electric cars are beginning to look attractive, especially in warm climates for those who don't drive very far. For the rest maybe gasoline, maybe hydrogen.

It’s been a while since I did an assessment of hydrogen and batteries for automobile propulsion, and while some basics have not changed, the price and durability of batteries has improved, th…

06/30/2021

Adding hydrogen to your car engine reduces pollution and improve gas milage if you add it at low load (that's most of the time) and run lean.

I month ago, I wrote to endorse hythane, a mix of natural gas (methane) and 20-40% hydrogen. This mix is ideal for use in solid oxide fuel cells. Normal IC engines are different, and I’d now …

12/18/2020

Hydrogen makes a lot of sense for transportation. We keep gotten better at making hydrogen, making lightweight tanks, and making fuel cells.

Some planemakers think the answer may be “yes”

10/19/2020

It seems that many of my customers use our hydrogen purifiers and generators in the manufacture of diamonds, so I thought I'd post about it, and about where hydrogen fits in.

The hope diamond resides in the Smithsonian. It really is a deep blue. It has about 5 ppm boron. If you’ve ever seen the Hope Dimond, or a picture of it, you’ll notice a most remarkable…