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Hydrogen not an efficient energy carrier for fuel cells - research
Fuel Cells, July 15 2010 (The Hydrogen Journal)
- According to a doctoral thesis by Richard Toonssen of Technical University Delft, Netherlands, using hydrogen as an energy carrier is not a very efficient option, if you want to provide electricity in people's homes, and your energy source is biofuels.
Mr Toonssen analysed two different options for making electricity from biofuels, by gasifying the biofuels and putting the gas into a fuel cell.
The first pathway is studied was gasifying biomass to produce syngas (a mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide), which can be fed directly into SOFC fuel cells in combination with a gas turbine to make electricity, which is then distributed through the electricity grid to people's homes.
The second pathway studied is gasifying biomass to make syngas, reprocessing the syngas into a gaseous fuel (such as clean syngas, hydrogen or synthetic natural gas), distributing this to residential customers, who use the fuel in microfuel cells in their homes.
If the second option is considered, it is most efficient to use syngas as the energy carrier, followed by synthetic natural gas.
But most efficient of all is to convert the biomass to electricity centrally, and then deliver power to people's homes via electricity, Mr Toonssen found.
