Science Forums 2

[CraigD]

Originally Posted by freeztar

What about H2 and CH4 produced during pyrolysis, Craig?
It's easy to produce, but I'm not sure about collection and storage.
In any case, it seems to be ideal.

AFAIK, hydrogen, CH4 (methane), and other “reformed” fuel gases are made from more massive hydrocarbon molecule fuels, and have no more energy than these source fuels. I’m only familiar with CH4 -> H hydrogen reformers - a few years ago, a friend of mine was interested in a GE’s home fuel cell, a heavily subsidized program involving a refrigerator-sized, hydrogen fuel cell producing about 2000 W when supplied with residential natural gas (mostly CH4). I understand that such reformers can be about 80% efficient (though they produce CO waste gas, an especially dangerous gas to get near a PEM fuel cell).

Other hydrogen reformer that was big news a few years ago were ones that allowed medium size consumer electronics – PCs, mostly – to be powered by small PEM or anode/cathode fuel cells with hydrogen supplies by methanol, or other hydrogen-carrying liquids, like sodium borohydride. This Inforworld article describes such a system, producing about 20 W for 3 to 4 hours from a pen-sized replaceable fuel cartridge costing about US $1.50.

Though reformed hydrogen systems have a lot of useful applications, I don’t think they’re very promising for “heavy” power system needs, such as vehicles, residential and industrial heating and cooling, and electric power generation. From a practical engineering perspective, if you have a hydrogen-carrying liquid such as alcohol where you need power, it’s easiest and most efficient to just burn it, rather than reforming it into hydrogen and burning the hydrogen or using it in a fuel cell.