ROHS directive and electric vehicles?

[[email protected]]

I remember a TeeVee ad many many years ago, for a new gasoline additive:
boron. They called it "DX Super Boron" and there was supposed to be
something special about it.

It contained a borate, B(OR)3. I don't know why.


--- G. R. L. Cowan, former hydrogen fan
"Boron: A Better Energy Carrier than Hydrogen?"
http://www.eagle.ca/~gcowan/Paper_for_11th_CHC.html

 

[John Woodgate]

It contained a borate, B(OR)3.

I think that may be a little confusing.

I don't know why.

Fabric softener? (;-)

 

[Richard Henry]

It contained a borate, B(OR)3. I don't know why.

B is Boron, O is Oxygen...What is R?

 

[John Woodgate]

B is Boron, O is Oxygen...What is R?

Any univalent base. I said it was confusing. It's a sophisticated way of
formulating the generic orthoborate, a salt of orthoboric acid H3BO3.

 

[Eeyore]

Any univalent base. I said it was confusing. It's a sophisticated way of
formulating the generic orthoborate, a salt of orthoboric acid H3BO3.

Does it do anything useful ?

Graham

 

[Rich Grise]

Does it do anything useful ?

According to the post that started this sub-thread, you can mix it with
water and get hydrogen gas.

I wonder what a chunk of plain boron would look like, or would it
immediately start reacting with the air?

Thanks!
Rich

 

[Eeyore]

According to the post that started this sub-thread, you can mix it with
water and get hydrogen gas.

Ok - obviously not that useful at all then !

Graham

 

[[email protected]]

According to the post that started this sub-thread, you can mix it with
water and get hydrogen gas.

No, that's plain boron. In an orthoborate, each boron already has
all the oxygen it can take.

I wonder what a chunk of plain boron would look like, ...
http://www.theodoregray.com/PeriodicTable/Elements/005/index.html

or would it immediately start reacting with the air?

Ignition temperature is ~1,500 Celsius. At 1,000 C
it will sit in air all day.

It also, as mentioned, burns in steam. The heat of that burning
is of course much less, but even so, the ignition temperature is less,
~800 C.


--- G. R. L. Cowan, former hydrogen fan
"Boron: A Better Energy Carrier than Hydrogen?"
http://www.eagle.ca/~gcowan/Paper_for_11th_CHC.html

 

[Rich Grise]

Ok - obviously not that useful at all then !

Well, this is nagging at me:
--------<quote>--------
Subject: Re: ROHS directive and electric vehicles?
From: "CWatters" <[email protected]>
Newsgroups: sci.electronics.misc,sci.electronics.design
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
Date: Tue, 1 Aug 2006 21:25:32 +0100

New Scientist this past week has an article about making hydrogen from
water "as you go" using Boron. If I remember correctly 45Kg of water and
18kg of Boron makes 5kg of Hydrogen... which has the same energy as about
40L tank of gas. The important bit is that the total weight of 63kg
(45+18) is lighter than that of a 5kg cylinder of hydrogen. This is
because you need a strong cylinder to store hydrogen gas under pressure.
The Boron oxide produced in the reaction can be recycled and reused.
--------</quote>--------

Which is where my original question came from - do you just dump
som granulated boron into a water tank and it liberates hydrogen?

And, of course, we gat back to, where does the energy come from in the
first place?

Or is this guy blowing smoke up my ears?

Thanks,
Rich

 

[Sjouke Burry]

Well, this is nagging at me:
--------<quote>--------
Subject: Re: ROHS directive and electric vehicles?
From: "CWatters" <[email protected]>
Newsgroups: sci.electronics.misc,sci.electronics.design
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
Date: Tue, 1 Aug 2006 21:25:32 +0100

New Scientist this past week has an article about making hydrogen from
water "as you go" using Boron. If I remember correctly 45Kg of water and
18kg of Boron makes 5kg of Hydrogen... which has the same energy as about
40L tank of gas. The important bit is that the total weight of 63kg
(45+18) is lighter than that of a 5kg cylinder of hydrogen. This is
because you need a strong cylinder to store hydrogen gas under pressure.
The Boron oxide produced in the reaction can be recycled and reused.
--------</quote>--------

Which is where my original question came from - do you just dump
som granulated boron into a water tank and it liberates hydrogen?

And, of course, we gat back to, where does the energy come from in the
first place?

Or is this guy blowing smoke up my ears?

Thanks,
Rich

Well, as a first guess, how much energy is it going
to take to turn the waste boron chemicals back into
the original one( maybe what has been delivered plus
a generous amount of waste heat and effort????).
There aint no such thing as a free lunch.(borrowed from
Robert Heinlein,"The moon is a harsh mistress")

 

[John Woodgate]

According to the post that started this sub-thread, you can mix it with
water and get hydrogen gas.

That's boron element, not an orthoborate. But you get a reaction only at
a high temperature, with steam under pressure. Once started, the
reaction can maintain the required temperature.

I wonder what a chunk of plain boron would look like, or would it
immediately start reacting with the air?

It is often seen as an inert brown powder, but it can also appear as
black shiny fragments, very similar to silicon in appearance.

 

[Robert Latest]

["Followup-To:" header set to sci.electronics.design.]

Yeah. It's so obviously bogus, yet very important and otherwise
apparently sane people are pushing "the hydrogen economy."

Europe seems to be backing out of the hydrogen hype. Someone
important must have pushed a few buttons on a pocket calculator.

robert

 

[Eeyore]

["Followup-To:" header set to sci.electronics.design.]

Yeah. It's so obviously bogus, yet very important and otherwise
apparently sane people are pushing "the hydrogen economy."

Europe seems to be backing out of the hydrogen hype. Someone
important must have pushed a few buttons on a pocket calculator.

The calculations speak for themselves !

Apparently the Governator's really into the idea though ( speaks volumes ) .

Graham

 

[CWatters]

Which is where my original question came from - do you just dump
som granulated boron into a water tank and it liberates hydrogen?

No the full article explains...

Heat the water to 800 add the Boron and you get Boron Oxide and Hydrogen.
Daimler Chrysler built a concept car that used this reaction some time ago.
In did 130Kph and 500K ragge.

The problem was the infrastructure needed to support the car. This time the
proposal is different.. Heat the Boron Oxide waste with Magnesium to recover
the Boron and seperate the resulting Magnesium Oxide using electrolysis
(solar generated electricity). Getting the infrastructure in place would
take government action that I can't see happening. Personally I think that
someone will crack the battery problem before that happens.

 

[joseph2k]

NiMH cells are just about as good as NiCad these days. The model car/plane
boys have all switched over. NiMH cells can supply quite high current.

About as good as? Hell, they have about twice the power density of NiCad;
volumetric or mass.

 

[joseph2k]

According to the post that started this sub-thread, you can mix it with
water and get hydrogen gas.

I wonder what a chunk of plain boron would look like, or would it
immediately start reacting with the air?

Thanks!
Rich

Try this: http://www.theodoregray.com/PeriodicTable/Elements/005/index.html