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Researchers discover safe, easy, and affordable way to store and retrieve hydrogen:
Researchers at the RIKEN Center for Emergent Matter Science (CEMS) in Japan have discovered a compound that uses a chemical reaction to store ammonia, potentially offering a safer and easier way to store this important chemical.
This discovery, published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society on July 10, makes it possible not only to safely and conveniently store ammonia, but also the important hydrogen is [sic] carries. This finding should help lead the way to a decarbonized society with a practical hydrogen economy.
For society to make the switch from carbon-based to hydrogen-based energy, we need a safe way to store and transport hydrogen, which by itself is highly combustible. One way to do this is to store it as part of another molecule and extract it as needed. Ammonia, chemically written as NH3, makes a good hydrogen carrier because three hydrogen atoms are packed into each molecule, with almost 20% of ammonia being hydrogen by weight.
The problem, however, is that ammonia is a highly corrosive gas, making it difficult to store and use. Currently, ammonia is generally stored by liquefying it at temperatures well below freezing in pressure-resistant containers. Porous compounds can also store ammonia at room temperature and pressure, but storage capacity is low, and the ammonia cannot always be retrieved easily.
The new study reports the discovery of a perovskite, a material with a distinctive repetitive crystal structure, which can easily store ammonia and also allows easy and complete retrieval at relatively low temperatures.
The research team led by Masuki Kawamoto at RIKEN CEMS focused on the perovskite ethylammonium lead iodide (EAPbI3), chemically written as CH3CH2NH3PbI3. They found that its one-dimensional columnar structure undergoes a chemical reaction with ammonia at room temperature and pressure, and dynamically transforms into a two-dimensional layered structure called lead iodide hydroxide, or Pb(OH)I.
Journal Reference:
Jyorthana Rajappa Muralidhar, Krishnachary Salikolimi, Kiyohiro Adachi, et al., Chemical Storage of Ammonia through Dynamic Structural Transformation of a Hybrid Perovskite Compound, J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2023. DOI: 10.1021/jacs.3c04181
(Score: 3, Informative) by Reziac on Thursday July 13 2023, @03:20AM (4 children)
Ammonia refrigerant leaking in the neighborhood of propane is why a long-ago neighbor no longer had a garage, a row of large trees, or a travel trailer, which I assume went up with a very large KA-BOOM, since there was nothing left of the trailer but the frame, with a large dent right under where the ammonia-cooled, propane-powered fridge used to be.
The garage being in the way saved the house. The large mature pines on the other side were all flat on the ground.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Thursday July 13 2023, @06:29PM (3 children)
Wooh... Thanks for the heads up!
I did not see that one coming.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Thursday July 13 2023, @07:30PM (2 children)
Drove by a day or two after the apparent event (I was just far enough up the road to have not heard it) and it was an astonishing thing to see. I expect the trailer's propane tank was closing on empty, or the KA-BOOM would have been a lot bigger.
Or why I disconnected the propane line formerly going to my trailer's ammonia-cooled fridge, egads... and a good thing, because eventually, it leaked.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by anubi on Thursday July 13 2023, @10:29PM (1 child)
I have seriously considered an ammonia refrigerator because of their simplicity, reliability, and efficiency. No moving parts!
Grandpa had one. Ran on kerosene. Arkla-Servel?
My neighbor had a propane reefer in his RV, too, but the city code enforcement ran him out. I miss him. He was an engineer, working at a local hospital, verifying all the medical stuff was up to snuff.
I note a lot of camp stoves run on diesel.
Being I own an old Diesel van ( old school purely mechanical IDI ),
I live in California. We are passing law about electric car mandates while simultaneously making it hard on utility companies. I see inevitable brownouts. I'd much rather my food be in a diesel powered ammonia absorption freezer.
Diesel has the advantage of not being so explosive ( unlike gasoline ). It takes thermal assist ( glow plugs ) to get my old Diesel to start.
A spark won't do it. It can be wicked and lit though.
I am just trying to prepare against what I think is idiocy of government leadership. I will still need to refrigerate and prepare food in the event the grid goes down.
Maybe I should change my name to "Chicken Little" as I think I have seen enough leadership idiocy to convince me we are just begging for collapse by Government Mandate.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Reziac on Thursday July 13 2023, @11:19PM
Yeah, I hear you, loud and painful. I lived in Los Angeles County for 28 years, and much as I loved the desert (and I liked L.A. too), I'm glad to be back in the Northern Wastes where I grew up, where sanity still prevails, and I'm regularly astonished by my highly pro-active electric co-op. (What do you mean, you're putting in new power poles? The old ones haven't yet entirely rotted away! And trim the trees dangling on the lines, at no charge? what is wrong with you people??)
Any heat source will do to circulate the ammonia. Dunno what's current but my 1961 vintage trailer fridge used either a single propane flame no bigger than a pilot light (it heated an iron flange that hung inside a sleeve), or an electric element the size of a hairbrush handle that ran at maybe 120 degrees (and fit inside the sleeve, rather loosely). The biggest downside was that it really did not get very cold. It could do about 50 degrees better than ambient. Dunno if that was its design or an inherent limitation; it had fairly heavy insulation, and a whole bunch of heat exchange coils, but it was only a little smaller than an apartment-size (maybe 8cu'?), and maybe that was too much. I used it for several years with the electric heat source, but eventually internal corrosion got to it, and it quit. By the time I got around to ejecting it in favor of a regular minifridge, it had eaten through somewhere and the ammonia had leaked away.
Anyway, given you've got CA sun available, methinks solar and a battery would more than suffice to power the point heat that ammonia uses, and minimal need to worry about fuel or flame.
Cuz it's not the flame that's the issue; it's that ammonia reacts with hydrocarbons to make what amounts to TNT, and the result may (witness the neighbor's former trailer) spontaneously ignite.
And wouldn't that be fun to have driving around the same streets as ICEs.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.