EFOY fuel cell

[mastreb]

I wonder if you can "hack" the fuel cells, in other words refill them yourself with off the shelf methanol ? The entire cut the need to dock to recharge is sort of silly if its now search the world for a replacement canister.

Technically, sure. Just drill a hole in the cell, fill it with methanol, and plug it.

The issue is both impurities and introduced dirt in the methanol. These fuel cell generators work by passing methane through a platinum/palladium catalyzing grill that is exceptionally fine. These are laser-cut, nano-scale holes. This grill strips the hydrogen off the methane, reducing it to water and CO2.

As you can imagine, because the grill is made of two of the rarest commodity metals, it's very expensive to replace. Every particle in solution that isn't methanol can potentially permanently block these grill holes. The life of the unit is defined by the life of this grill, which is why they won't warranty damage caused by dirty fuel.

The problem is so severe that a about a gram of disolved salt will destroy a small grill.

It's this exotic grill constraint that makes the whole fuel cell proposition enormously expensive. Fuel cells really only make sense with natural gas fuels that by their nature won't contain particulate impurities that damage the catalyzing grill.

The process MAC explained is electrolysis--the separation of water into oxygen and hydrogen by means of a direct electrical current. It's similar but not the same as a catalytic fuel cell reaction. It's not used for power generation because it takes more power to separate the water into its constituent elements than burning them back together provides. It is used as a means to generate hydrogen in the laboratory when necessary because it's easy, but it will never be a source of power generation. Hydrocarbons contain far more hydrogen, so catalyzing them crosses the thermodynamic threshold and they become valuable fuels.

Hydrogen peroxide (H2O2), a close chemical relative of water, is so reactive (because of the extra oxygen) that it will combust violently in the presence of a number of catalyzing metals including platinum and even silver. But peroxide is expensive stuff because it has to be chemically produced and doesn't occur naturally (because it's so reactive that any formed naturally has already reacted with something).

It's always going to be hard to find sources of power cheaper than fuels that seep out of the ground ready to burn. Since cost is a function of difficult, there will never, ever be a cheaper fuel source than natural gas except sunlight, which falls upon us for free in even greater abundance. Fuels that are better in other ways, sure. Cheaper? No.

Matt

[BOAT]

The Captain of the Luna Sea speaks wisdom. I work in the electrical industry and we have a lot of solar solutions we offer our customers and there are a lot of other great things out there on the horizon, but one of the very best sources of solar energy is the power that sunlight creates on planet earth when it heats up the atmosphere and creates WIND.

Many many generations before us have been converting that wind power (solar energy) into good speed for a long time.

I doubt they will come up with a better solar conversion to power our boats, but I’m all ears and ready to buy when they come up with one!

[kadet]

I wonder if you can "hack" the fuel cells

There is absolutely nothing special about the EFOY methanol cartridge it is just a plastic container, looks like they even have a screw cap where you put them into the cell. But as mastreb says be careful not to introduce contamination during the refill process. And not refill for the first 12 months if you want to keep your warranty.

Methanol catalysed from Hydrogen and Carbon Monoxide is 99.99% pure methanol (about the purest you can get) and is available domestically as racing and or aviation methanol for about $2.25 a litre (as a comparison petrol is $1.50 a litre and EFOY methanol is $5.90 a litre) here in OZ.

We might be kind and say EFOY is just trying to protect it's liability under warranty by creating these "pure" fuel cartridges but it sounds more like profiteering at the expense of their customers by trying to monopolise the fuel supply and price gouging given the unreasonably high markup in price.

I would almost guarantee EFOY does not manufacture methanol themselves but sources it from a chemical company that produces methanol and as it comes off the line an EFOY or Medical or Racing label is stuck on the container depending on the client it is being shipped to all at the same wholesale price.

So the questions is why is it being retailed at such a high cost compared with other methanol?

[Crikey]

Yeah, the EFOY device is neat - but somewhat overeaching in its present expectations of current worth, in my humble opinion. Even if you take Mastrebs calculations and equivalate them to the current market price of industrial Ethanol, the math still doesn't work out. Sure it's got a long way to go; but, nonetheless, it's not too difficult to imagine some sort of picture that you're likely to be looking at, in a couple of years.
When you factor in an additional inevitable advance of battery and solar panel technology, you're really starting to cook with gas! Mind you if we keep doing that, we're doomed!
The future is nanotubes and molecular engineering ... not mechanics.