From: Rich Blinne (richblinne@hotmail.com)
Date: Tue Sep 03 2002 - 20:16:17 EDT
----Original Message Follows----
From: "John Burgeson" <hoss_radbourne@hotmail.com>
To: glenn.morton@btinternet.com
CC: asa@calvin.edu
Date: Tue, 03 Sep 2002 15:44:13 -0600
>Glenn -- you have a lot of data on how the oil supply is running out.
>Do you (or anyone) have any ideas on when Nuclear Fusion will replace it?
>Below is part of an article in NewScientist I came upon today. <SNIP>
Here's another intriguing development. Extracting hydrogen from glucose
using an inorganic catylist. If fuel cells could get their hydrogen from
other than from taking apart water, it could be a big win.
Abstract:
http://dix.doi.org/10.1038/nature01009
Review article (need subscription to Nature to see):
http://www.nature.com/cgi-taf/DynaPage.taf?
file=/nature/journal/v418/n6901/full/418928a_fs.html
29 August 2002
Letters to Nature
Nature 418, 964 - 967 (2002); doi:10.1038/nature01009
Hydrogen from catalytic reforming of biomass-derived hydrocarbons in liquid
water
R. D. CORTRIGHT, R. R. DAVDA & J. A. DUMESIC
Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Wisconsin, Madison,
Wisconsin 53706, USA
Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to J.A.D.
(e-mail: dumesic@engr.wisc.edu).
Concerns about the depletion of fossil fuel reserves and the pollution
caused by continuously increasing energy demands make hydrogen an attractive
alternative energy source. Hydrogen is currently derived from nonrenewable
natural gas and petroleum, but could in principle be generated from
renewable resources such as biomass or water. However, efficient hydrogen
production from water remains difficult and technologies for generating
hydrogen from biomass, such as enzymatic decomposition of sugars,
steam-reforming of bio-oils and gasification, suffer from low hydrogen
production rates and/or complex processing requirements. Here we demonstrate
that hydrogen can be produced from sugars and alcohols at temperatures near
500 K in a single-reactor aqueous-phase reforming process using a
platinum-based catalyst. We are able to convert glucoseówhich makes up the
major energy reserves in plants and animalsóto hydrogen and gaseous alkanes,
with hydrogen constituting 50% of the products. We find that the selectivity
for hydrogen production increases when we use molecules that are more
reduced than sugars, with ethylene glycol and methanol being almost
completely converted into hydrogen and carbon dioxide. These findings
suggest that catalytic aqueous-phase reforming might prove useful for the
generation of hydrogen-rich fuel gas from carbohydrates extracted from
renewable biomass and biomass waste streams.
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