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IEEE Spectrum has a story on research into graphene which shows protons can pass through the material. One of the key properties of graphene was that it was previously thought to be impermeable to gases and liquids:
But as Geim and his colleagues discovered, in research that was published in the journal Nature, monolayers of graphene and boron nitride are highly permeable to thermal protons under ambient conditions. So hydrogen atoms stripped of their electrons could pass right through the one-atom-thick materials.
This has significant applications in fuel cells, since proton exchange membrane fuel cells require a barrier that only passes protons, and this discovery could be used to improve the efficiency of existing designs. However in addition to this it could also allow the cells to extract hydrogen directly from humid air
It is conceivable, based on this research, that hydrogen production could be combined with the fuel cell itself to make what would amount to a mobile electric generator fueled simply by hydrogen present in air.
“When you know how it should work, it is a very simple setup,” said Marcelo Lozada-Hidalgo, a PhD student and corresponding author of this paper, in a press release. “You put a hydrogen-containing gas on one side, apply a small electric current, and collect pure hydrogen on the other side. This hydrogen can then be burned in a fuel cell.”
Additional detail is available at Science Daily and in the original press release from the University of Manchester.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Thursday December 04 2014, @06:55PM
Nobody is arguing that you can probably make efficiency improvements in both hydrogen generation and electrical storage.
But everyone knows there is simply not enough electrical energy in the process to power the car, AND retain enough to generate more hydrogen.
Splitting water (by what ever means) ---> rejoining water (combustion) is a lossy process in and of itself.
You can't scale it up and extract enough power to move a car with no other energy input.
So to answer your question, yes, we can know without getting there first, because: science.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by morgauxo on Tuesday December 09 2014, @05:11PM
Umm.. no.. Because I DID NOT SAY there was no external source of power. It's in the fucking battery! I was comparing using electricity to split water to power an internal combustion engine vs using electricity to power an electric motor. Obviously neither could possibly ever be even 100% efficient and certainly not > 100% thus no perpetual motion machines.
My only argument was that since people started studying these things we have expent more time and money trying to optimize traditional electric motors than we have optimizing the process of producing hydrogen. No doubt there are designs and discoveries to be made to improve both processes from what we currently have available today. Maybe... with enough resources thrown at it our processes of producing hydrogen would catch up with our electric motors efficiency wise and a burning hydrogen split from water car might be more efficient.
My question was is it even possble when we have reached that point where we have optimized both methods to the maximum efficiency allowed by real world physics will we know it? Is there some way we can calculate that x is the maximum possible efficiency of splitting water and y is the maximum possible efficiencly of an electric motor. Thus we could know which method is ultimately the better one once we have reached the end goal of optimizing it to it's maximum possible efficiency. Thus we would know which one to spend research time and money on today.
Obviously both maximums are still less than 100%. Obviously neither kind of car would run without an external source of energy. Barring some really really good solar panels or RTGs for everyone they ultimately would be powered by plugging the damn things in and charging it!
What I don't understand is why any time one asks such questions someone has to assume they are talking about a closed loop and start going off about perpetual motion.