The scooter, built by an industrial design student in the Netherlands, has an electric motor powered by a (Li-)ion battery. If the Fhybrid is ever put into production, the idea is to charge the battery with a fuel-cell system, which would derive its energy from a tank of hydrogen.
The scooter also recharges the battery by snagging energy during braking.
Since two-wheeled vehicles rely primarily on front-wheel braking for efficient stops, Bouman's scooter is front-wheel drive — better to capture the braking energy, he explained.
The Fhybrid has a top speed of 40 mph. Bouman says it accelerates faster than regular scooters and could travel approximately 124 miles on a tank of hydrogen.
http://www.livescience.com/environment/060726_hybrid_scooter.html
It costs at least $2.50 to produce a kilogram of hydrogen, which contains the same amount of energy as a gallon of gasoline. But the next generation of wind turbines and solar cells could supply cheaper electricity and make electrolysis more feasible for certain areas of the U.S.
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_04/b3917097_mz018.htm
For my previous blogs about hydrogen link here:
Hydrogen, it’s the same stuff your grandfather used in the zeppelin
The Hydrogen Road of Norway
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Link to my other blog entries in Photoblog
I recently received the following press release from Penn State:
1. RESEARCHERS USE CORN WASTE TO GENERATE ELECTRICITY
After the corn harvest, whether for cattle feed or corn on the cob,
farmers usually leave the stalks and stems in the field, but now, a
team of Penn State researchers thinks corn stover can be used not
only to manufacture ethanol, but to generate electricity directly.
"People are looking at using cellulose to make ethanol," said Bruce
E. Logan, the Kappe professor of environmental engineering. "You can
make ethanol from exploded corn stover, but once you have the sugars,
you can make electricity directly."
Logan's process uses a microbial fuel cell to convert organic
material into electricity. Previous work has shown that these fuel
cells can generate electricity from glucose and from municipal
wastewater and that these cells also can directly generate hydrogen
gas.
Corn stalks and leaves, amassing 250 million tons a year, make up a
third of the total solid waste produced in the United States.
Currently, 90 percent of corn stover is left unused in the field.
Corn stover is about 70 percent cellulose or hemicellulose, complex
carbohydrates that are locked in chains. A steam explosion process
releases the organic sugars and other compounds in the corn waste and
these compounds can be fed to microbial fuel cells.
The microbial fuel cells contain two electrodes and anaerobic
bacteria -- bacteria that do not need oxygen -- that consume the
sugars and other organic material and release electrons. These
electrons travel to the anode and flow in a wire to the cathode,
producing electrical current. The water in the fuel cell donates
positive hydrogen atoms that combine with the electrons and oxygen to
form water.
The microbial fuel cells were inoculated with domestic wastewater and
a nutrient medium containing glucose, the researchers report in the
journal Energy and Fuels. Once established, the bacteria colonies
were fed the sugary organic liquid obtained from steam exploding of
corn stover.
The researchers, who include Logan, Yi Zuo, a Penn State graduate
student in environmental engineering, and Pin-Ching Maness, a senior
scientist with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, report that
"the conversion of organic matter to electricity, on the basis of
biological oxygen demand removal, was relatively high with greater
than 93 percent of the biological oxygen demand removed."
In essence, there is no organic matter left to cause problems when
disposing of the remaining liquid because there is nothing left to
oxidize. The process converts all the available energy to
electricity. The electrical production is about one watt for every
square meter of surface area at about 0.5 volts. A typical light bulb
uses 60 watts. To increase wattage, the surface area needs to
increase. To increase voltage, fuel cells can be linked in series.
"Producing electricity from steam-exploded corn stover adds to the
energy diversity of our portfolio," said Logan. "Electricity can be
used to pump water uphill for later use, directly run light, heat and
equipment or electrolyze water to create hydrogen."
The Penn State researcher and colleagues also have used microbial
fuel cells and wastewater to produce hydrogen gas directly.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture and the National Science
Foundation funded this research.
Contact: A'ndrea Messer aem1@psu.edu
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