GE Cuts Hydrogen Cost With Plastic Electrode Enclosure
by John Laumer, Philadelphia on 03.11.06
Wind turbines and efficient dishwashers are great start but they hardly make a trend line. Where are all the green innovations we've been waiting to hear about from GE since last year's proclamation? Finally comes an announcement that makes an old classic sound eprovisational enough to get our attention . Seems GE has gotten it's Ecomagination chops after all. From the MIT Technology Review: "...researchers at GE say they've come up with a prototype version of an easy-to-manufacture apparatus that they believe could lead to a commercial machine able to produce hydrogen via electrolysis for about $3 per kilogram -- a quantity roughly comparable to a gallon of gasoline -- down from today's $8 per kilogram. That could make it economically practical for future fuel-cell vehicles that run on hydrogen."
"...The core problem in improving electrolyzers for hydrogen manufacture is not how to improve the fundamental conversion efficiency, says Richard Bourgeois, an electrolysis project leader at GE Global Research in Niskayuna, NY. "You can only make it so much more efficient; there isn't a lot you can do. So we've attacked the capital costs," he says...Bourgeois' research team came up with a way to make future electrolyzers largely out of plastic. They used a GE plastic called Noryl [molecular structure of polymer segment shown above] that is extremely resistant to the highly alkaline potassium hydroxide. And because the plastic is easy to form and join, manufacturing an electrolyzer is relatively cheap".
A great many wonderful sounding inventions never make it past the lab bench and patent office simply because the all important manufacturing cost hurdle is never overcome. This sad truth serves as the rational for those who champion fossil fuels as the only legit option. Keep on using that ecomagination GE.
I think this is a great step, but I believe that it Hydrogen will need to be significantly cheaper than fossil fuels before wide spread adaptation. I am really amped on the technology but folks need more than just "green" to make changes;)
Just my opinion, often wrong, and rarely listened to.
You guys got it wrong. The electrodes are NOT made of the plastic. They are still made of a metal coated with a nickel catalyst. The enclosure of the electrolyzer is made of Noryl. Read the article.
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It would seem your problem is mainly with the headline, which I will fix with the added word "enclosure." Thank you for the correction: but please see below for further thoughts.
I actually did read the article in total, but oversimplified when I wrote the headline after the post. This kind of oversimplification happens also when people refer to a "fuel cell" without differentiating the inner stack elements versus the enclosures, etc.
This gets at the larger problem of writing a two or three paragraph post about a bit of unfamiliar but important technology. When the original post is well done, I'd prefer to excerpt the large bits of it that handle technical details, but would then be at increased risk of being accused of violating copyright. To avoid that hassle, I've been oversimplifying and sometimes urging that readers take the time to read the full story at the link. If anyone has some suggestions on how to handle these issues we'd certainly welcome your comments.
Isn't it "ecomagination" not "ecoimagination"?
http://www.ecomagination.com
You are absolutely right, Santiago. I'll fix it. Thank you for pointing it out.