HYDROGEN energy AS AN ALTERNATIVE TO OIL AND GAS
HYDROGEN energy AS AN ALTERNATIVE TO OIL AND GAS
Modern energy is oil. If there is oil, there is light and heat. If there is no oil, then there is no light or heat.
Of course it is possible sometimes to use a wind-driven generator for a trifle purpose, or to warm up water in a swimming pool by the sun energy. But if it goes about serious power consumers such as megacities with the industrial enterprises, the only oil competitor is atomic energy. But even if the mankind overcomes fear of a new Chernobyl or Fukushima, even then it is difficult to find an alternative to oil products to substitute them in automobiles and particularly as airplane fuel. Approximately so a well educated contemporary person thinks, especially if he considers himself a cool pragmatic recognizing an absolute imperative of the market based on energy. What is surprising Jules Verne was the first to mention hydrogen as potential fuel and energy carrier in his novel «The Mysterious Island» in 1857.
«What fuel will replace coal?
Water, — the engineer responded.
Water? – Pencroft asked again.
Yes, but the water separated into components, — Syrus Smith explained. — Undoubtedly, it will be done using electric power. The day will come, and water will replace fuel. Hydrogen and oxygen, of which it consists, will become a powerful inexhaustible source of heat and light that coal is very far from!»
It is difficult to overestimate this really prophetical statement of the science-fiction writer of that time. Most likely Jules Verne heard about by then already known Hess’s law, it is simply difficult to believe in another version. However the paradox is that today there are more competent people on the planet and many experts in the field of physical chemistry, but nobody even considers the possibility to use water as a powerful inexhaustible source of heat and light as the hero of the novel proposed. The matter is that the HYDRAULIC ENGINE of INTERNAL COMBUSTION (HEIC) patented in Russia is what the science-fiction writer forecast in the faraway 1857. To remain within the limits of a genre it is necessary to explain popularly, first of all the thermodynamic process occurring in the engine combustion chamber. Nowadays hydrogen is commercially produced from water by electrolysis. Production cost of one cubic meter of hydrogen makes up as much as 5 kW of the electric power. The received hydrogen and oxygen of the stochiometric composition can be directly supplied to the combustion chamber of HEIC under pressure of 4 atmospheres because such pressure is typical for industrial electrolytic cells. As is known, the mix of hydrogen and oxygen in proportion from 5 to 95 % burns with explosion, but HEIC has three possible variants to exclude detonation. The following is the simplest example. If propane is mixed with air and a spark is introduced into mix the explosion will occur, and everybody knows about this fact. But also it is known, that the same gas easily burns in a gas cooker, and it is clear why. Because it mixes with the air only in the process of burning, and in the pure state the propane, as well as hydrogen, does not burn. Exactly the same can be obtained in the chamber combustion of HEIC, and further the same will happen that occurs in the combustion chamber of a piston engine (isochoric burning process). Below the difference between isochoric and isobar processes will be discussed in detail. From the invention description it is known, that HEIC has no exhaust (closed thermodynamic cycle) and it means, that a combustion chamber should be filled by something, it cannot remain empty before fuel is supplied. At first sight it looks as a successful coincidence of useful with forced. But it is only at first sight. The mechanism of burning under the law of mass action provides rationality of nonequivalent composition of a gas mixture (in nature the stochiometric ratio of gas mixture does not exist) and this means, that if the combustion chamber is filled with one of the reaction components mentioned in the novel: «a source of inexhaustible energy» will be obtained. Any interlocutor will require: «Once again from this place and give your reasons». I agree. And so, I would like to remind this engine has no exhaust, this means what the combustion chamber is filled with will not be thrown out from the engine when the cycle is over. In the combustion chamber hydrogen and oxygen is supplied in strict equivalent proportion. The equivalent composition (stochiometric composition) means that after the chemical reaction is over we will receive only water in the form of steam without any residue. But the gas which will be constantly present in the combustion chamber, in this case pure oxygen, will necessarily enter the reaction, but after the process is over it will remain in the combustion chamber in the pure state. It is called shift of chemical balance under the law of mass action or constant shift. What is the result? Let us assume that we supply one liter volume of a gas mixture of stochiometric composition to the combustion chamber, and in the combustion chamber two liters of pure oxygen are present it makes total three liters of a gas mixture. And under the law of mass action, three liters of gas mixture of nonequivalent composition and three liters of stochiometric composition have the identical numerical value of a balance constant. As a result we will receive total energy as from three liters of a gas mixture of stochiometric composition. Now it is not difficult to calculate if, for example, in a gas mixture, there is ten times less hydrogen as compared to oxygen then from one cubic meter of hydrogen for which production 5 kW of the electric power was consumed in HEIC we will obtain about 20 kW of electric power with the account of entropy and the general efficiency of the engine. HEIC is what the hero of the novel «Mysterious Island» spoke about.
Today, at the beginning of the twenty first century the entire world community is seriously concerned with energy and ecological problems on our planet, in some cases this concern develops into panic, mainly, such is demonstrated by oligarchs of the Old World. It is enough to quote as an example the statement of Lord William Rismog the former editor-in-chief of the London newspaper «The Times» concerning the future of the world. As he said, the world will become absolutely new, other world in which 95 percent of people will not get any education, and all wealth will be created by no more than five percent of the population sitting on islands and distributing the information «gold billion». This is the result of the copybook truth: «If there is oil, there is light and heat. If there is no oil, then there is no light or heat».
In the world scientific community the situation is not much better. If it is possible to understand oligarchs somehow the scientists will be responsible to the future generations of mankind for such silly projects as controlled thermonuclear fusion which will give heat for the same steam boiler, or the project to deliver «a miracle fuel» from the moon to the earth, or the project of the earth dwellers migration to other planets. And this is when the earth possesses inexhaustible resources of water as raw material to obtain hydrogen for hydrogen power engineering. The paradox is that the world science has no systematic approach to the scientific laws and discoveries. An error of the world science is that any discovered and registered scientific law demands internal comprehension of its applied value. Here is only one example. The main law of thermal chemistry; it was discovered by G. Hess in 1840, and one of the basic formulations of this law states: For two practically important processes — isochoric and isobaric — heat of the process (thermal effect of chemical reaction) acquires properties of a function of state. This is the consequence of the first fundamental of the thermodynamics and is a theoretical basis of thermal chemistry. Do you understand what this law is about!!? The thermal effect of chemical reaction is function of the process state. But after all the reaction of interaction between hydrogen and oxygen is reversible, i.e. simultaneously both direct and back reactions take place, and the process stops only when the velocities of the direct and back reactions equal. Then there arises the second question. What will happen if chemical balance does not occur? The law of mass action gives an answer to this question.
And now more details about laws.
Chemical reaction as a process consists in rupture of some connections and forming new ones, therefore it is accompanied by emitting or absorption of energy and if this reaction is reversible it is very important to know, what is the consequence? And from this the other major law of chemical thermodynamics follows, the law of mass action: the velocity of chemical reaction is directly proportional to product of reacting substances concentrations. The law of mass action established by the Norwegian scientists C.Guldberg and P.Waage in 1864 — 1867 allows developing kinetic equations in chemical kinetics and defining position of chemical balance in chemical thermodynamics. It is difficult to understand this main law of chemical thermodynamics for not a specialist. Its present expression was developing gradually and it has been introduced into science rather recently. Ideas close to the law of mass action can be found in works by C.L. Berthollet at the beginning of the 19th century, but the final wording of this law needed half of a century of the intense discussions. To understand this law it is absolutely necessary to specify what the velocity of chemical reaction is. The velocity of chemical reaction is characterized by the change in concentration of the reacting substances (or reaction products) for a time unit. The velocity of chemical reaction is influenced by three basic external factors: temperature, pressure and concentration of reacting substances. These define the result of the process (thermal effect). All these difficult thermal chemical processes proceed under the law of mass action. Let us consider an example for gaseous system:
where there are 3 molecules in the left part of the equation and 2 molecules in the right part. In case in a thermochemical system all water steam decomposed into hydrogen and oxygen the system would have 3 volumes and if decomposition does not occur at all then 2 volumes. Thus, at increase in pressure the balance will shift towards formation of water steam, i.e. its relative concentration will increase (considerable amount of heat is generated). But under the law of mass action decomposition of water steam into elements accelerates going together with an increase in volume and continues until pressure created by the system itself becomes equal to the pressure acting from outside.
Further, the basic formulation of the Hess’s law goes: the thermal effect of reaction proceeding at constant pressure or constant volume does not depend on the reaction direction and is defined only by the state of initial substances and reaction products.
The thermal effect of isochoric reaction is equal to an internal energy increment of the system:
The thermal effect of isobar reaction is equal to an enthalpy increment of the system:
Isochoric process is burning at constant volume V = const
Isobar process is burning at constant pressure p = const
Considering these laws enables to understand that a reversible chemical reaction of interaction between pure hydrogen and oxygen is a natural source of inexhaustible energy. Under condition of the chemical balance shift restraint under the law of mass action we can obtain an artificial source of inexhaustible energy. In practice burning process necessarily occurs with the shift of chemical balance under the law of mass action, no matter whether wood or coal burns in the furnace, fuel burns in the jet engine, or whether the fire-arm shoots, in all these cases balance shifts to the right can be observed. If to consider burning of fire wood in a furnace the increase in temperature of burning occurs due to the intensity of air draught through the ash hole and temperature growth, in turn, increases the velocity of chemical reaction. It is isobar process, so it is possible to see these laws in operation. As for the jet engine isochoric process which generates much more energy can be observed, and it is caused by a considerable shift of chemical balance from duration of the isochoric process. Speaking about shift of the chemical balance it is necessary to pay special attention to an internal combustion engine (ICE). The twentieth century was a century of ICE. The first ICE was designed by J. Lenoir in 1860 and since then this engine has completely won the minds of the «strongest half of the mankind», even pushing weapons to the second place. Such popularity of automobile is quite clear, first of all, it is high capacity in combination with high speed and comfort – there is nothing more pleasant than to press a pedal of an accelerator easily and feel how many horse powers obey your will. But very few people know where this capacity is derived from, may be only designers of these engines. ICE uses chemical energy of the fuel which burns in a chamber with a considerable shift of the chemical balance. A portion of this energy is transformed into mechanical energy. It is appropriate to compare the temperature of gasoline burning in open air which is approximately isobar process and the flame temperature in the combustion chamber of the engine which is the result of the chemical balance shift — isochoric process. But these bright practical proves of thermal chemistry and thermodynamic law performance did not induce scientists in this area to create the hydrogen engine of the type offered in the invention HYDRAULIC ENGINE of INTERNAL COMBUSTION. Why? Most likely, this question is rhetorical.
In 2003 the countries — participants of «G8» raised the question about necessity of international cooperation to study problems of the hydrogen energy. Transition to an actual hydrogen power system started in the most developed countries of the world at the beginning of the twenty first century. So, Japan allocated four billion dollars for acquisition of all hydrogen power technologies till 2020. In Europe it is planned to spend five billions dollars for scientific research and development in the field of hydrogen power engineering.
The government of the USA allocated 1.7 billion dollars to commercialize vehicles on hydrogen fuel elements, and also 1.2 billion dollars to manufacture hydrogen from coal without СО2 emission.
Unfortunately, almost all scientific developments concerning hydrogen energy deal with working out hydrogen fuel elements, but it approximately the same as solar batteries, and therefore they cannot compete even with the piston engine. Here is an example of an official estimation of problems of hydrogen energy мейд by the Russian scientists in a scientific cafe May 15, 2007 in St. Petersburg within the frames of festival «Days of science» arranged by fund «Dynasty» (Dmitry Zimin).
«In one year and a half, — S.Gurevich said, — we plan to make a small energy source with the capacity of 2W (it is an amount a mobile phone consumes). It will be the size of the mobile phone accumulator. Also we hope that its power capacity will be higher than of modern accumulators».
«To each power – its time, — V.Tumanov summed up. — The hydrogen energy will replace hydrocarbon energetics somewhere in 40-50 years. Then it will be able to solve problems of the remote regions where transmission facilities do not reach».
«The hydrogen program», its strategy and tactics, is planned till 2015. For 2007-2008 the budget of 80 million dollars is planned, till 2015 it is planned to spend 500 million dollars more and further till 2020 some billions of dollars. Everything will depend on market situation and correctness of NIC NEP business strategy. As for original technologies there are 130 of them in the data base of NIC NEP at present.
I offer one of an example of HEIC estimation by scientists.
Room: 14 (M), internal phone: 5784
Phone: 3330554
The Siberian branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Institute of Inorganic Chemistry.
During the first contact the person promised to redirect the project to other experts if he himself fails to understand.
His conclusion was the following.
This invention is of fundamental theoretical nature. Even if there is subject of invention, it will take at least decades before practical implementation of a draft project for the engine of the principally new design.
Narrow specialized experts in the area at the Institute where the above mentioned person works refused even to discuss the project because they feared to spend their time inefficiently.
It is too lovely for words. May be such approach was possible concerning the piston engine at the end of the 19th century, but today!!!! As they say, «fear takes molehills for mountains». HEIC project is so simple, that nobody can believe in it. In this project there is nothing new except a design, and all the rest is known to a science, everything.
At the same time the project of controlled thermonuclear fusion does not frighten anybody and does not trouble. Two more facts for the scientists to think over: 1) incredible complexity of the project, and 2) project cost. The truth goes: «Everything great is simple».
Why is it possible to consider HEIC as an ideal engine?
Maximum efficiency is 80 — 85 %
An artificial source of inexhaustible energy
Ecologically absolutely pure
Highly technological
The basic practical advantages of the world power engineering transition to actual hydrogen power engineering due to introduction of HEIC are:
A renewed energy source
Minimum cost price of the electric power
Global transmission facilities and heating systems will disappear as unnecessary
Air, railway, water and underwater transport will pass to independent electric motive power with an unlimited stroke reserve.
Automobile and trucks should completely convert to the electric motive power (variants).
There is no alternative to HEIC project!