sci.energy.hydrogen
[Top] [All Lists]

Re: Electrolysis is not always ludicrous...

Subject: Re: Electrolysis is not always ludicrous...
From: "charliew2"
Date: Tue, 19 Jul 2005 14:47:20 -0500
Newsgroups: sci.energy.hydrogen
"Don W." <dNOSPAMwiddersAThotmail.com> wrote in message 
news:EOqdnYy3suxCgkDfRVn-2A@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> "charliew2" <charliew2@xxxxxxx> wrote in message
> news:11dp1eld7cit789@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>
>>
>> You would design a process which does the same thing as what is currently
>> done with hydrocarbons.  For a hydrocarbon fuel, no one currently
> extracts
>> the hydrogen (and throws away the carbon) on a commercial basis (at least
>> not yet).  Burning a fuel in air breaks both carbon-carbon chemical bonds
>> and carbon-hydrogen chemical bonds.  You want to take advantage of this
> bond
>> breaking, especially the carbon-carbon bond breaking, because of the
> energy
>> release.
>>
>> OK, Don ... I'll "shift gears" a bit for you to make the point more
> clearly.
>> Biological systems burn sugar (specifically glucose) to release heat and
>> obtain the energy necessary to run life processes.  This process takes
> place
>> slowly and at low temperatures because of all of the catalysts (e.g.,
>> enzymes) involved, and because of the multiple steps that living
> organisms
>> go through to oxidise sugars to CO2 and water.  However, there is nothing
>> preventing such a chemical reaction from proceeding from sugar to carbon
>> dioxide and water in a single step, given the right equipment.
>>
>>
>
> Then I take it you're saying not to extract the hydrogen from the sugar?
> OK, we're all on the same page.  I think Don L. was saying that too when 
> he
> wrote "The energy required to extact the hydrogen would vastly exceed that
> of the recovered hydrogen."
>
> Don W.
>
>

That's correct - don't go through the extraction step.  Burn the sugar 
directly.

After all, you normally would burn the carbon if you extracted the hydrogen. 
It is much more efficient to burn them together. 



<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>
Privacy Policy