With sugar, water, and enzymes in your tank, you have a fuel kit for a PEM (proton electrolyte membrane) fuel cell vehicle. An onboard battery provides the instant energy for starting the vehicle while the enzymes get to work on their sugary snack. The fuel cell will recharge the battery later from excess sugar energy.
According to Zhang, "Low-temperature PEM fuel cells are used primarily for transportation applications due to their fast startup time, high energy conversion efficiency, low operating temperature (below 180 F), and favorable power-to-weight ratio."
Zhang and Mielenz wrote in a review in the Jan. 28, 2011, issue of the journal Energies, "When polysaccharides and water are mixed, no reaction occurs
... When the enzyme cocktail is added, hydrogen and carbon dioxide are generated spontaneously. Our research showed that the gas produced by (synthetic cell-free enzyme pathway biotransformation) contains 67 percent hydrogen and 33 percent carbon dioxide. Hydrogen and carbon dioxide can be separated by membrane technology (or the) mixture can be directly used by PEM fuel cells with approximately 1 percent loss in fuel cell efficiency." The efficiency statement is based on a study by Zhang's lab published in the journal Energy & Environmental Science in 2011.
Zhang wrote in a Perspective column in Energy & Environmental Sciences that the process provides a number of special features suitable for mobile PEM fuel cells: high energy efficiency as a result of extracting all the chemical energy stored in the substrate sugars and some of the low-temperature thermal energy from the fuel cell; high hydrogen storage density; mild reaction conditions, at the same range of those of PEM fuel cells; nearly no costs for product separation; clean products for PEM fuel cells and easy power system configuration; and simple and safe distribution and storage of solid sugars.
"Carbohydrates as a hydrogen carrier would meet the U.S. Department of Energy's ultimate target for useful energy based on the mass of the entire onboard system in a light-duty vehicle (7.5 percent hydrogen by weight or 2.5 kilowatt hour per kilogram)," Zhang says.
Stationary energy sites, such as large fuel cell stacks, can also take delivery of carbohydrate powder from local or distant biorefineries and generate hydrogen by using an enzyme cocktail, says Zhang. It is also possible that satellite hydrogen generation stations could produce hydrogen to refill hydrogen-fuel cell vehicles.
The use of renewable carbohydrate as a hydrogen storage carrier addresses the challenges associated with storage, safety, distribution, and infrastructure, Zhang and Mielenz conclude in the review.
What about miracle four – better fuel cells? It's not his field, but he believes most fuel cell problems, such as cost and lifetime, have been solved. "In the long term, improving energy utilization efficiency through hydrogen-fuel cell electricity systems will be vital for sustainable transportation," he says.
In the meantime, there are still a number of process engineering challenges to overcome to implement sugar-powered cars, says Zhang – such as warm-up of the onboard bioreformer where the sugar and water are converted to gas, shut-down of the bioreformer, temperature control for the coupled bioreformer and fuel cells, mixing and gas release control for the bioreformer, and re-generation of used enzymes in the bioreformer. "But such technical challenges can be solved based on available engineering know-how if the great potential is widely realized," he says.
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