Re:Buoyant wants to solve middle-mile delivery with cargo ai...
by bombcar on Friday August 27, 2021 @11:54PM
(#28335510)
It’s interesting that the answer everyone gives is the least effective and efficient way - electrolysis.
Sulfuric acid and iron into hydrogen is much simpler.
Re:Buoyant wants to solve middle-mile delivery with cargo ai...
by ben_w on Saturday August 28, 2021 @06:24AM
(#28336971)
Efficient I can believe, but I’m curious why that’s simpler than electrolysis? I first played with electrolysis when I was nine.
Re:Buoyant wants to solve middle-mile delivery with cargo ai...
by kragen on Saturday August 28, 2021 @10:25AM
(#28338328)
Depends on your metric. Sulfuric acid and iron is pretty simple if you don't count the blast furnace. Certainly a lot simpler than a gasoline generator. If you have grid power and a diode, electrolysis gets simpler --- though you probably want at least a transformer. Hydrolith is probably simpler and lighter than sulfuric acid and iron, though.
Re:Buoyant wants to solve middle-mile delivery with cargo ai...
by rini17 on Saturday August 28, 2021 @06:43AM
(#28337050)
It's simple but surprisingly fickle, even more if you want industrial amounts of hydrogen safely. This is an example of a home setup and nontrivial considerations that went into it:
Piggy-backing on your comment at a tangent - how did they make such large quantities of Hydrogen in the early 1900s (and store and transport it safely)? This[1] has some interesting reading on it; there were gas cylinders but no standardisation of valves, not good lubricants for compressors, a different set of pipes for airship filling and airship topping-up, some stations which could remove and re-purify the Hydrogen, and two different methods of pre-war and post-war production are described.
This[2] has much more detailed history of the options, including a Popular Mechanics article from 1908.
[1] https://www.nevilshute.org/Engineering/AMBurgess/amb_hydroge...
[2] https://welweb.org/ThenandNow/Hydrogen%20Generation.html