Re:Solar-driven water splitting at 13.8% solar-to-hydrogen e...
by VBprogrammer on Thursday November 18, 2021 @07:10PM
(#29272265)
A comparison with the Hindenburg isn't useful in any case. To put enough hydrogen in a car to get a reasonable number of miles, you need to compress it to 10,000psi. The Hindenburg is basically atmospheric pressure.
Re:Solar-driven water splitting at 13.8% solar-to-hydrogen e...
by stickfigure on Thursday November 18, 2021 @09:17PM
(#29273079)
10k psi actually makes hydrogen safer (chemically). Consider it a form of positive pressure - there is much less risk of air getting into the tank.
The Hindenburg crew had to regularly test the hydrogen cells for oxygen content.
I'm well aware of chemical prowess in that period, especially on the German part. They had a bunch of Nobel prize winners.
However, that's why I said "close-to-wartime". First of all, in case you weren't aware, the Hindenburg was supposed to use helium but due to a lack of helium in Germany (I think it was primarily due to American export restrictions), they had to use hydrogen.
I don't know of other limitations for the Hindenburg, per se, but knowing the overall German shortages of the period, I wouldn't be surprised if they had other structural issues with the Hindenburg itself, especially since it wasn't designed to be used with hydrogen.
On top of this, the Hindenburg design was from the late 20s, 1929, I believe.
If materials science, modeling, etc haven't advanced since 1929, I'll eat a shoe. If we're somehow worse at managing hydrogen after almost 100 years, I'll eat the other shoe.