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Recursive NG-H2 Engine

SagaLore

SagaLore

Elite Member
New idea for an engine.


Hydrogen was going to be the next big fuel source for both internal combustion engines and fuel cells, but we pretty much hit a roadblock with that since it has such a low energy density compared to other fuels and its really hard to carry around. The other day I read an article here about natural gas being so abundant in the US, and a big energy guy was trying to push that as the next efficient fuel for cars.


Since then I've been thinking over my rotary engine designs and decided to switch from ethanol to natural gas. It just so happens that engines like the wankel rotary are very efficient at running on hydrogen, but that still doesn't fix the other issues of carrying that around.

Then it occurred to me.

The primary method for producing hydrogen gas is using steam-methane reforming of natural gas.

My original ethanol based rotary design depended on an ethanol-water fuel mixture that used diesel ignition and a resulting steam expansion. The point is to try and reduce total heat output and keep that energy in a kinetic form.

So now the new idea...

The fuel will be natural gas, but the engine itself will run on a mixture that is mostly hydrogen. The exhaust will be hot steam, which will be kept in a cylindrical chamber under a constant pressure necessary for steam-methane reforming. Since this reforming process is endothermic, we're actually using the waste heat to convert the NG to H2. The engine will use pressure swing absorption to scrub carbon dioxide and excess nitrogen from the recursive chamber.
 
What's the point of using hydrogen in the combustion chamber over natural gas? I mean, you're looking at going from CH4 to CO2 + H2O either way, so you're looking at adding the inefficiency of the reformer, the difficulty of scrubbing the CO2 from the H2, and the difficulty of precisely metering the H2 from a reaction chamber dependent on exhaust gas temperature.
 
way easier to use algae derived hydrocarbons to make regular gasoline and bio diesel.

recaptures co2 out of the air so functionally carbon neutral, no need to change engine designs, no change to fuel distribution infrastructure.
 
gorobei said:
way easier to use algae derived hydrocarbons to make regular gasoline and bio diesel.

recaptures co2 out of the air so functionally carbon neutral, no need to change engine designs, no change to fuel distribution infrastructure.
Click to expand...

By using natural gas, we're also recycling CO2. If we don't burn it for ourselves, its ends up back into the carbon cycle anyway.
 
DominionSeraph said:
Oil and natural gas fields.

This is why you're retarded.
Click to expand...


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biogas

With the many benefits of biogas, it is starting to become a popular source of energy and is starting to be utilized in the United States more. In 2003, the United States consumed 147 trillion BTU of energy from "landfill gas", about 0.6% of the total U.S. natural gas consumption.[26] Methane biogas derived from cow manure is also being tested in the U.S. According to a 2008 study, collected by the Science and Children magazine, methane biogas from cow manure would be sufficient to produce 100 billion kilowatt hours enough to power millions of homes across America. Furthermore, methane biogas has been tested to prove that it can reduce 99 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions or about 4% of the greenhouse gases produced by the United States.[28]


In Hereford, Texas, cow manure is being used to power an ethanol power plant. By switching to methane biogas, the ethanol power plant has saved one thousand barrels of oil a day. Overall, the power plant has reduced transportation costs and will be opening many more jobs for future power plants that will be relying on biogas.[30]
Click to expand...
 
DominionSeraph said:
That only leaves 99.4% nonrenewable.



And what do you think the problem with CO2 is?
Hint: It's not magically "bad" like you apparently believe.
Click to expand...
I do believe you have reading comprehension issues. 😛
I in no way said it was inherently bad, though it can do bad things to people in high quantities.
Both CO2 and O2 levels are lower now then they had been in the distant past.

Where I live, if the north and south pole as well as all other glacial regions melt I would still be doing just fine.
It would also make winter safer and summer no worse.
And it's global climate change not global warming, get with facts. 😛

Based on the on data from the past several hundred-thousand we are more then overdue for another one, that would be far worse than any slight increase in temperature.
 
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