Toyota Car
The Central Laboratory of Toyota in Japan, has developed a very efficient way for ethanol production with efficiency two times higher than conventional systems.
Opens therefore a great opportunity to accelerate the creation of the infrastructure of hydrogen in Japan, the U.S. and perhaps in Brazil.
The innovative technology developed by Toyota produces hydrogen by passing a mixture of water and ethanol in a quartz tube containing a rhodium catalyst, while applying heat using microwaves.
The tube also contains silicon carbide, which absorbs the microwaves.
The tube "magic" is stored inside an aluminum box, where microwaves are irradiated.
The experiment uses a frequency of 2.45 GHz and demonstrated that the reaction occurred in 10 seconds, producing 0.92 liters of hydrogen obtained from 1 ml of water-ethanol mixture.
Process efficiency was around 80%, twice the efficiency of conventional systems.
To get an idea, the efficiency of a car burning ethanol is approximately 16% - converting chemical energy of ethanol in mechanics.
In a vehicle with a fuel cell, we would have an efficiency of 48%, three times this figure, since the efficiency of the fuel cell Honda, for example, is 60%. Multiplying this value by 60% to 80%, we get the efficiency of 48%. Obviously, there are losses in the process, or up to 10%.
To put it more simply: a vehicle combustion of alcohol is, for example, 10 km per liter. Since an electric vehicle with hydrogen obtained from the ethanol is 30 kilometers with the same liter of alcohol in addition to the advantages of regenerative braking of electric vehicle that stores energy when the vehicle brakes.
sources: Fuel Cell Today and H2 Portal
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