Hydrogen from gasoline

Otsuka, K., Shigeta, Y., and Takenaka, S., Production of hydrogen from gasoline range alkanes with reduced C02 emission, Int. J. Hydrogen Energ., 27, 11, 2002. 

These are reasonable questions. Several additional questions need to be answered before we pursue a path of generating large volumes of hydrogen from gasoline reformers on board fuel cell vehicles ... 

A subsidiary has shown an unpressurized 50 kW fuel cell engine. Is working with Toshiba to develop a prototype fuel cell system that extracts hydrogen from gasoline. 

Imperial Chemical Industries in Great Britain hydrogenated coal to produce gasoline until the start of World War II. The process then operated on creosote middle oil until 1958. As of this writing none of these plants is being used to make Hquid fuels for economic reasons. The present prices of coal and hydrogen from coal have not made synthetic Hquid fuels competitive. Exceptions are those cases, as in South Africa, where there is availabiHty of cheap coal, and fuel Hquids are very important. 

The delivered cost of hydrogen from natural gas would need to become competitive with the delivered cost of gasoline. The infrastructure costs must be managed over time with total estimates reaching a trillion dollars or more. 

High cost is probably the major reason why only a small percentage of the world s current hydrogen production comes from electrolysis. To replace all the gasoline sold in the United States today with hydrogen from electrolysis would require a doubling of the electrical power that is sold in the United States at the present time which is about 4 trillion kW. 

The use of available fuels will allow fuel cells on the market more quickly. Hydrogen could be processed from gasoline onboard vehicles until hydrogen becomes a more practical fuel choice. DaimlerChrysler has been working with an onboard sensor that would tell what kind of fuel is being pumped in and then adjust the reformer on the fly. This system would allow different fuels to be reformed at different temperatures using varying proportions of steam and air. 

Compressed hydrogen from farmed wood (and other biomasses, such as residual wood) can, in combination with fuel-cell cars, achieve fuel costs that are close to today s costs of untaxed conventional gasoline and diesel, and simultaneously lower overall GHG emissions significantly. If the potential were not limited, farmed wood could be an optimal alternative fuel source. 

Compressed hydrogen from renewable electricity in combination with fuel-cell cars can achieve fuel costs close to today s costs of taxed conventional gasoline and diesel cars, less overall GHG emissions, but at considerably higher costs, at least in the short term. 

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