Microreactors Change Propane into Hydrogen

Roland Piquepaille writes "Microreactors have already been used for on-site reforming of fuels, such as methanol or propane, to produce hydrogen to be used in fuel cells. Now, researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) have designed very efficient ceramic microreactors to do this task. The scientists say that their microreactors are much better than other fuel reformer systems. They are now trying to reform gasoline and diesel, which are more widely distributed than propane. Does this mean that one day we'll be able to go to a gas station to refill the fuel cells powering our laptops? Probably not before a while, but read more for additional details, references and a picture of a prototype."

Re:huh?

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

aren't there better things we should be trying to turn into hyrdogen?

Right now, today, we only have one, maybe two, wide-scale energy distribution systems. Its gasoline. If we can easily and cheaply make a gas station do double-duty as a hydrogran station that solves the short term problem of how to fill-up hydrogren powered cars. The expectation is that over time, as hydrogren powered cards theoretically become widespread, we can slowly build up alternate distribution system(s) to support them as we wean off of gasoline.

PS - the other "maybe" distribution system is electricity. I say "maybe" because we do a power grid, but we don't have metered charging stations nor do we have the capacity to support wide-scale automobile recharging. Yet. Start putting some nukes online and we might get there pretty quick.

Information on fuel cell vehicles

[loshwomp]

Here's a paper from AC Propulsion that explains why fuel cells are the technology that never will be. The smart money got out of fuel cells years ago.

Perspectives on Fuel Cell and Battery Electric Vehicles [acpropulsion.com]

Re:Fuel cells are not the answer!

[evilviper]

All current existing methods to make hydrogen available start with upstream in-the-ground based energy sources (methane, propane, gasoline, etc.) and involve dumping the CO2 that results from extracting the hydrogen into the atmosphere.

I think the issues that should be discussed is how terribly ineffecient such conversions are, plus the ineffeciencies in the fuel cells, etc. It would be far more effecient to burn the propane/gasoline in a power plant, and charge a battery-powered car from the grid, and batteries are improving more quickly than fuel cells...