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New method for producing hydrogen fuel from sunflower oil
A team of british researchers led by Valerie
Dupont, an energy engineer with the University of Leeds
(England) has succeeded in developing a promising mehtod to
produce hydrogen from sunflower oil. This achievement that
carries great potentials for the auto industry, came to
light at the 228th national meeting of the American
Chemical Society, the world's largest scientific society,
recently.
For supplying the energy needs of the future,
fuel cells show much promise, and their demand is growing
with increasing use of technology. However, one of their
drawbacks, expert say, is that the hydrogen required to run
them generally comes from the burning of fossil fuels,
which generate green house gases like carbondioxide and
methane and pollutants such as carbonmonoxide.
It is in this regard that the production of
hydrogen fuel from sunflower oil shows a significant
departure from conventional technological-industrial
practices as it provides a more environment-friendly
alternative by reducing this pollutants while offering an
abundant, low-cost and renewable resource that reduces
dependence on foreign oil.
In order to achieve this feat, the
researchers developed an experimental hydrogen generator
that uses only sunflower oil, Air and water vapour along
with two highly-specialised catalyst one nickel based, the
other carbon based that are alternatively used to store and
then release oxygen and carbondioxide while producing
hydrogen intermittently. The new process doesnot involve
burning of any fossil fuels, they say.
The sunflower used is the same type found
on grocery shelves. As the researchers say, the process can
also work with other types of vegetable oils.
Another salient aspect of this breakthrough
is that the leeds researchers have achieved a hydrogen
purity of 90%, which is more efficient than current
hydrogen generator that only achieve hydrogen purity of
about 70% in laboratory studies. Carbondioxide and methane,
the byproducts of sunflower oil transformation are
generated in roughly equal proportions, the researchers say.
Though the experimental generator has not
been used to supply hydrogen to any fuel cells yet, a
similar device could be refined to equip fuel station with
large scale hydrogen supplies, which can be fed into the
tanks of vehicles containing fuel cells, by consumers.
It's worth mentioning here that hydrogen
serves as a key components of fuel cells, where it reacts
with oxygen to generate electricity, with water as the main
emission. Major automobile manufacturers are quickly
developing fuel cell technology, but mass production of
such vehicles, as experts believe, might take a much longer
period.