Super-Soaker inventor may have solar-powered fuel cell breakthrough

Not only that, but he's a huge supporter of science education for kids. He is a judge at the local Atlanta FIRST Robotics regional.

* Experts tell him it won't work and point out the PhD thesis (or equivalent) that "proves" it... however, he is attacking the problem in a different way that the expert did not expect.

IT seems that he has focused on the academic side of this more than commercial, though he seems to have a staff suitable to commercializing this. Maybe the DARPA or whomever gives him better terms on his deal than he'd get from Khosla?

It does mention PARC investing and owning parts of his patents.

It seems like he still needs to proof that his idea is working. Other scientist say that it seems to be a good idea. So investing in this is a huge risk since even though the concept might actually work it may turn out that there's economical sane way to enter mass production. In addition there's still the doubt of "too good to be true" because it usually is. On one hand it is probably this kind of thinking which makes us pass on great opportunities, on the other it keeps us from sending money to help getting a multi-million dollar transaction through. Somewhat related also with the funding problem but on a larger scale was this guy http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1996321846673788606# Judge for yourself if you would invest 1 billion to (prehaps) get a working fusion reactor.

This sounds to me (mechanical engineer but not in this field) a lot like the light bulb problem Edison faced.

Until Edison found the proper filament material, he had an empty glass jar with leads in it and a theory. As soon as he found the proper filament material, he had an invention that changes the world.

The concept here is great. Heat hydrogen to create differential pressure, extract ions by forcing it through a membrane, repeat. Note that the key part of it is the membrane. The primary problem in fuel cells is the same thing - the membrane.

It becomes basically a materials problem at that point.

That is not to say that it is easy, but that it is different. Once I have a few square inches of the proper material I no longer have just a proof of concept or a prototype, I have a full fledged device. The whole issue is figuring it out once and that might take a long time.

(Sure there are more issues, like extracting water from the fuel cell or increasing efficiency or lowering cost, but the bulk of it is that first initial problem.)

It might turn out that whatever it takes to make this membrane is crazy expensive, and that it doesn't make economic sense. Or maybe it will start out expensive and it will become cheap like the filament in the lightbult. I don't know but I do know that he will probably need a heck of a lot more funding before he can show a proof of concept, and anyone waiting for it to work will be far to late to get in on the action.

> A huge unmet need is extraction of heat energy at lower temperature differentials

That, of course, would still be a real challenge. I didn't see any specifics, but notice his ceramic membrane was built to withstand 400 C. That's very hot.

But what if it's double the efficiency at twice the cost to produce?

It does sound rather more complex than a solar cell.

There's not much you can do to get useful work out of low temperature differentials. Carnot's theorem (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnot_heat_engine#Carnot.27s_t...) says that the maximum efficiency of a heat engine is n = 1 - T_cold / T_hot, where the temperatures are given on the Kelvin scale (i.e. absolute temperatures).

That means between say 20 Celsius and 45 Celsius you will never convert more than 8% of the thermal energy that needs to flow from hot to cold into useful work.

He should disguise his invention as a social network for the energy industry -- BOOM! instant funding.

It is not clear that he has been looking for investors .. from the article it seems he has been looking for government grants, which would have given him money without asking for equity in return.

Johnson may have initially wanted to fund his invention purely from his own money, keeping all the equity, but as the money started running out he has been looking for alternatives.

I don't know....

But since H2 is not the fuel (it is the working fluid, the sun is the fuel) and as long as the loss is kept within reason, it seems like this could generate enough energy to do some electrolysis and refill any lost H2.

Thanks. You should submit it.

I don't know about all steam turbines, but for the ones with which I'm familiar, clanking is a Bad Thing. (Between college and law school I did my ROTC scholarship payback as a Navy nuclear engineering officer.)

I imagine the vast majority of people equate steam engines with steam powered trains seen in cinema. Unlike those clanking piston based engines, modern turbines whir -> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHhNrQL7Azc

Right. He called it a fuel cell because it was the only way he could get past the funding gatekeepers who dismissed his ideas without properly examining or understanding them.

I would have to imagine this would have been patented if your "heatsink" source is practical. Unless you are living in a area like Iceland where you can tap into geothermal energy, I would have to imagine any other method would be impractical. You have to obtain the heat from somewhere. Be it natural or from some form of man made energy source.

I do remember reading somewhere about capturing/retaining heat during the hotter parts of the season and then releasing it during the colder seasons. The solution involved a massive hole I believe or something like that.

Imagining a giant heat sink makes me think of something pretty dangerous... I picture any part of the heat sink sticking out of the water (I'm guessing it captures heat from the sun?) which becomes hot enough to heat several thousands of gallons of water would produce some really nasty burns for anyone unfortunate enough to touch it.

You don't have to explain your idea in detail, of course, but I'd be curious if you had considered a way to safely transfer the energy into the water. Perhaps there is a solar powered way to cheaply heat swimming pools safely... but I'd think the energy might need to be converted to electricity first, since we are already used to controlling and insulating that safely.

Cover it with an insulated top when not in use. Your pool is colder than ambient because the top surface is constantly evaporating, leaving behind the slower moving molecules.

A solar heater would work better (if you have sun) because it will absorb more energy than ambiant air convected over the same area. And you would need a fan for a heatsink if its wasn't windy. http://www.amazon.com/SmartPool-SunHeater-Above-Ground-Pools...

A way for you to test it would be to do it on a small scale - maybe buy some copper tube and circulate an aquarium with the water filter pump.

Start by looking at geothermal heat pumps. They basically use the earth as a heat source or a heat sink to maintain the temperature of your house at a comfortable level.

well, I think the real tech isn't the concentrator but the membrane that converts heat to electricity by forcing ions through a proton-exchange membrane.

any source of energy will have a chance of causing far more energetic particles, if not directly then through particle interactions. For the same reason, water far below boiling will steam.

As to the rest, can't help you there. IANAPP :)

The maximum heat you can get from sunlight is the temperature of the sun: definitely hot enough to ionize most gases.

Sure it can - you just have to focus the sun's rays into a smaller area.

The sun delivers on the order of 1000W per sqm during the day, so (eg.) focusing 100 sqm into 1 sqm == 100,000W. 12 hours of daylight will then give you a theoretical production of 1.2MWh per day, but it's usually a lot less, due to the angle of the sun in the morning/evening and inefficiencies in your energy capture.

At a guess, it doesn't need to create a full-on plasma, just needs a lot Hydrogen ions hitting the membrane. A small amount of ionization will suffice - sort of like 'micropayments' or a long tail phenomenon.

Because that's what the membrane filters do. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proton_exchange_membrane http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proton_conductor Mainly they work on size - small versus really small.

Again, at a guess, it doesn't need to cool the other side - it's not a temperature gradient, it's a concentration gradient. And since the ions are being reacted back to H2 at a brisk rate, it's not a big problem. The more thermal energy you could maintain in the ions the better, because they wouldn't need as much heating once they'd been recycled.

It has a whiff of perpetual motion machine to it. Maxwell's Demon, I think.

> How would this work? Surely sunlight can't create enough heat to ionize a gas (creating plasma?).

He isn't ionizing the gas, he is increasing the gas pressure by heating it. "Only instead of using those pressure gradients to move an axle or a wheel, he’s forcing ions through a membrane." See next for why that is important.

> Why don't the whole hydrogen atoms go through the membrane to the lower pressure area?

He uses a semi-permeable membrane http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semipermeable_membrane. They also have use in chemical applications such as batteries and fuel cells.

The membrane blocks the atoms, but allows the ions (protons) through. It does require a substantial amount of pressure for it to work. That is where the heat -> pressure comes into effect, and why the reconstituted hydrogen on the "cold" size has to be compressed and pumped back into the "hot" side.

While this sounds a little like a perpetual motion machine, it isn't because the sun's heat is adding the energy that is being extracted via the electrons.

> How does he alternate which side is heated? How does he cool the other side?

He heats one side and cools one side, no alternating. The heating (and cooling) cause a pressure differential, which drives the reaction via the semi-permeable membrane.

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I suspect there are some pretty substantial challenges remaining before this becomes a sizable / viable energy source.

It sounds like it is related to proton exchange fuel cells, except instead of using the catalyst + oxidant to drive the reaction, it is using pressure.

Refs:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_cell#Proton_exchange_fuel_...

http://auto.howstuffworks.com/fuel-efficiency/alternative-fu...

The effect is pretty straightforward and not hard to make work in a lab. The problem is that it works at very high temperatures, and ion-permeable membranes degrade quickly at those temperatures. Anything sufficiently hot will randomly eject atoms and evaporate, even ceramic. It sounds like his work is an improved ceramic membrane, but it's not useful unless it lasts thousands of hours at full temperature, with temperature cycling every day.

Right - surely they can get a scale model of it working. I take all these announcements with a grain of salt now. We're always reading about these breakthroughs, then nothing. I mean, if he had even a small working prototype, he could be on the news and gaining investors and traction.

I don't understand the downvoting, so I'll make my position clear. If you read the article, the guy is now in financial trouble because the super soaker profits have largely dried up, and he has had to put other plans on hold.

What I'm saying is, if you find yourself in the situation where you have a big win, you need to lock away some of that to keep you in retirement. Then, you can go onto your next venture knowing that, if it doesn't work out, at least you won't fall on financial hard times. I honestly don't know why this is so downvoted, so perhaps someone can explain it to me.