19-11-04
New Zealand scientists have found a breakthrough method of purifying
hydrogen, using iron sands, which may help the world to develop a clean-burning
replacement for oil. The process of splitting water to extract the hydrogen needs a lot of energy,
but the scientists at state-owned Industrial Research Ltd (IRL) believe the
energy could be supplied by sawdust and other biomass wastes from the forestry
industry. IRL hydrogen project manager Ian Brown said the company had applied
for patents for the technology and believed it was unique.
Dr Brown previously led IRL's ceramic materials programme, which helped
Auckland-based Pyrotek to create a world market for advanced ceramics used in
the aluminium industry. He formed a hydrogen research team this year because
another IRL unit developing fuel cells to store hydrogen needed a source of pure
gas.
He said New Zealand had millions of tons of iron sand and had already
developed an infrastructure to extract it for the steel mill at Glenbrook and
for exports to Japan. There would be no need to extract large amounts, as the
iron sand could be reused many times over. Dr Brown hopes to develop a 5 MW demonstration plant within five years, but
expects that it may take 10 years to make the technology available commercially.
He sees opportunities for New Zealand engineering companies to manufacture the
processing plants and sell them around the world. Professor Ralph Sims, of Massey University's Centre for Energy Research, who
is collaborating with the team, told the Royal Society's annual conference in
Christchurch that biomass-based hydrogen could make New Zealand the first nation
to be "fossil fuel and nuclear free". He said the biomass from forest
wastes or other sources would provide energy and gas for a process that involved
heating water into steam, then injecting it into other materials.
Source: Fairfax New ZealandNew Zealand scientists see way to replace oil
The process uses the North Island west coast's unique volcanic iron sands to
help to extract pure hydrogen from water. The hydrogen could eventually replace
oil in both cars and electricity generation, eliminating carbon dioxide
emissions that are blamed for global warming.
"People have had ideas about using iron oxides, but as far as we can tell
they have never figured out how to make it happen," he said. "No one
has got it to demonstration plant stage. No one has contemplated using iron
sands. No one has contemplated combining it with biomass technologies. It's the
whole package of ideas that is unique."
"All the existing fuel cell technologies internationally demand high-purity
hydrogen because they have components that respond badly to contaminant
gases," he said. "That is one of the difficulties of developing a fuel
cell economy."
"We are chemically changing it and then changing it back to what it
was." His team is collaborating with two US Government-funded research
groups -- on hydrogen generation at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and
on hydrogen storage at Los Alamos National Laboratory.
"There are also a lot of opportunities for applications and infrastructure
and to devise technologies that make use of pure hydrogen, such as investigating
fuel cell technologies for particular applications. It's going to change the way
we live. Hydrogen technologies will have the same sort of impact as the computer
and telephone."
IRL is also working on a process to store the hydrogen inside solid materials
which can hold large quantities of the gas more safely than in bottles.