New form of water created, could lead to breakthrough in hydrogen fuel

[N8]

http://www.newscientist.com/channel/fundamentals/mg19225764.200-ice-steam-liquid-and-now-a-new-type-of-water.html

"This is a novel material, uniquely different from water," says David Mao, a team member at the Carnegie Institution in Washington DC. "It is very energetic, but stable and does not react back to form water when kept at high pressure."

Once synthesised, the alloy can be stored for over 120 days at temperatures up to 400 °C when kept at high pressure. The team is now characterising the properties of the alloy and Mao suggests that the material could be used as a way of storing and transporting hydrogen for use in fuel cells.

[Changleen]

Wow, that's really cool. Sounds a little expensive to process though. I hope it works out, and isn't buried under the rug by big oil.

[LordOpie]

find a way to reverse the process and you've probably found the cure for cancer.

I mean, if you bombard water (which the human body is mostly made of) for an extended period of time and you get this brown sluggish alloy? Sounds like cancer water to me.

Which is actually tasty with a slice of lemon.

[BurlyShirley]

Hotdog Water > Cancer Water

[Westy]

I like how it is stable only under high pressure. Spring a leak and err um??? Heading in the right direction though. There are a lot of problems with hydrogen as energy, this only seems to answer the containment and storage portion. Still takes at least as much energy to process the hydrogen as it will release, where do we get that energy from?

[jdschall]

Sounds like the same stuff I get if I leave the coffee in the coffee pot at work over the weekend.

[jdschall]

Still takes at least as much energy to process the hydrogen as it will release, where do we get that energy from?


It's pronounced new-que-lar...

[Changleen]

I like how it is stable only under high pressure. Spring a leak and err um??? Heading in the right direction though. There are a lot of problems with hydrogen as energy, this only seems to answer the containment and storage portion. Still takes at least as much energy to process the hydrogen as it will release, where do we get that energy from?The Sun, hopefully.

[Westy]

It's pronounced new-que-lar...

Unfortunately the answer to that is NIMBY.

[LordOpie]

I like how it is stable only under high pressure. Spring a leak and err um???

I don't see that as a problem since you have to have a system that's as leak proof as nuclear plants.

non-leak solid barrier
---------------------------
new-water shield
---------------------------
hydrogen
---------------------------
new-water shield
---------------------------
non-leak solid barrier

[Westy]

I don't see that as a problem since you have to have a system that's as leak proof as nuclear plants.

non-leak solid barrier
---------------------------
new-water shield
---------------------------
hydrogen
---------------------------
new-water shield
---------------------------
non-leak solid barrier


I agree. I think we should be going nukular. My electricity is nukular and everyday I see bumper stickers pleading to prevent any new nuke plants being built in the area. ****ing hippy morons. Although we have yet to provide a good solution for spent fuel.

[narlus]

Although we have yet to provide a good solution for spent fuel.

true for oil too....i think the atmosphere is reaching its capacity...

[H8R]

****ing hippy morons. Although we have yet to provide a good solution for spent fuel.

So if a plant keeps producing waste without a safe means of disposal...


Wait, who are the morons again?

[skatetokil]

we can fire rockets full of spent fuel into the sun.

duh.

[syadasti]

I agree. I think we should be going nukular. My electricity is nukular and everyday I see bumper stickers pleading to prevent any new nuke plants being built in the area. ****ing hippy morons. Although we have yet to provide a good solution for spent fuel.

Put money into making better breeder reactors :clue:

Even more comprehensive are such systems as the IFR pyroprocessing system, which uses pools of molten cadmium and electrorefiners to reprocess metallic fuel directly on-site at the reactor. Such systems not only commingle all the minor actinides with both uranium and plutonium, they are compact and self-contained, so that no plutonium-containing material ever needs to be transported away from the site of the breeder reactor. Breeder reactors incorporating such technology would most likely be designed with breeding ratios very close to 1.00, so that after an initial loading of enriched uranium and/or plutonium fuel, the reactor would then be refueled only with small deliveries of natural uranium metal. A block of natural uranium metal about the size of a milk crate delivered once per month would be all the fuel such a 1 gigawatt reactor would need. [9] Such self-contained breeders are currently envisioned as the final self-contained and self-supporting ultimate goal of nuclear reactor designers.

[LordOpie]

we can fire rockets full of spent fuel into the sun.

duh.

I don't know about the cost-effectiveness for that, but really, why is that solution so hard for people? Or put it in the path of comet passing through our solar system?