HYDROGEN CONVERSION
RHF'S TECHNOLOGY
THE HYDROGEN ECONOMY
WHY DO WE NEED A NEW HYDROGEN ECONOMY
PYROLOSIS, NOT HYDROLYSIS

RHF'S Technology

At the Biomass Energy Foundation we’re developing practical technologies for releasing hydrogen from its carbon bonds—to generate clean electricity, to power irrigation pumps, to heat homes, and to run cars and trucks. The key to this hydrogen conversion is to transport and store the liquid or solid renewable hydrocarbon in its original form, and then convert it to hydrogen just before it’s used.

Here’s an example of how it works: Let’s say you have a farm. For every pound of food you produce, there are several pounds of waste products—stalks, husks, straw, etc. Normally, you would plow most of that back into the soil, either to get rid of it or to fertilize the land. Now let’s say you decide to convert that waste to hydrogen-rich fuels to run your tractor, your irrigation pumps and even to heat your home. First, you would convert all the waste to standard pellets, then you’d install a small biomass gasifier on each piece of equipment; you’d also want to put one on your home’s furnace. The pellets become your source of fuel. They’re easy to transport and store. You even could sell your excess.

In the gasifier, the pellets are partially combusted to bring the biomass to the temperature at which the chemical bonds break. They are given just enough oxygen to facilitate the reaction, resulting in a hydrogen-rich gas. This gas is then immediately injected into the engine or burner. It’s easy to modify existing engines to use this fuel. Since the hydrogen only exists in its raw form for a few seconds, at most, and is transported only a tiny distance – a few inches or feet – all of the infrastructure problems are solved. You get all the benefits of hydrogen and none of the technical issues (problems) of pure hydrogen.

Could this really work? Yes; it already has. During World War II, much of the civilian population of Europe had no access to petrol (gasoline). Without a practical solution, most would have starved. Europeans converted more than one million vehicles—cars, trucks, tractors, even boats—to run on hydrogen from wood chips. They lived this way for years.

BEF’s technology is fundamentally the same, but today’s systems are far more efficient and infinitely cleaner. The principle, however, is the same — use available and abundant renewable biomass to transport and store hydrogen energy. Then, convert it to a hydrogen-rich gas at the point of use.

Just in case you live in the city and don’t have a lot of crop waste, the same process works for liquids like vegetable oil, alcohols and biodiesel. Even though wood chips were used for transportation during the war, we at RHF believe renewable liquids will be the hydrogen source of choice for cars and trucks. That will allow us to use existing pipelines, tanks and fuel pumps with essentially no conversion.

But what about the carbon that’s also released when the chemical bonds are broken? It turns out that it’s also a great fuel. In fact, carbon, oxygen and nitrogen are the other principal components of hydrogen-rich gas. And don’t be concerned about the potential greenhouse gas impact of using carbon as a fuel. Remember that all biomass originally comes from plants. While that plant was growing, it absorbed far more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere than this sustainable process puts back. In fact, by replacing fossil fuels with hydrogen-rich gases from biomass, we not only balance the carbon cycle, but actually reduce the level of CO2 in the atmosphere.

Is there enough biomass to replace all the oil we use on the planet? Probably not, at least until we learn more about growing things like algae and seaweed. But there is enough to replace a lot of it. And biomass clearly is the largest, most readily available renewable resource we have.

There is no doubt here at BEF that we need to expand our knowledge and use of wind and solar as power generators. We also must learn how realistically to harvest energy from the oceans. We must continue to conserve. And we must learn to do more things with less energy, especially during the critical transition period from fossil fuels to hydrogen-rich fuels.

But we also must be grateful for the enormous progress – cultural as well as economic – that has resulted from our expanded use of oil. The problem is that, like most good things, it is not going to last forever. Since it is not, we must act now to be ready for the future. That’s our agenda here at the Biomass Energy Foundation.

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