Category Archives: REB Research products

My steam-operated, high pressure pump

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Here’s a miniature version of a duplex pump that we made 2-3 years ago at REB Research as a way to pump fuel into hydrogen generators for use with fuel cells. The design is from the 1800s. It was used on tank locomotives and steamboats to pump water into the boiler using only the pressure in the boiler itself. This seems like magic, but isn’t. There is no rotation, but linear motion in a steam piston of larger diameter pushes a liquid pump piston with a smaller diameter. Each piston travels the same distance, but there is more volume in the steam cylinder. The work from the steam piston is greater: W = ∫PdV; energy is conserved, and the liquid is pumped to higher pressure than the driving steam (neat!).

The following is a still photo. Click on the YouTube link to see the steam pump in action. It has over 4000 views!

Mini duplex pump. Provides high pressure water from steam power. Amini version of a classic of the 1800s Coffee cup and pen shown for scale.

Mini duplex pump. Provides high pressure water from steam power. A mini version of a classic of the 1800s Coffee cup and pen shown for scale.

You can get the bronze casting and the plans for this pump from Stanley co (England). Any talented machinist should be able to do the rest. I hired an Amish craftsman in Ohio. Maurice Perlman did the final fit work in our shop.

Our standard line of hydrogen generators still use electricity to pump the methanol-water. Even our latest generators are meant for nom-mobile applications where electricity is awfully convenient and cheap. This pump was intended for a future customer who would need to generate hydrogen to make electricity for remote and mobile applications. Even our non-mobile hydrogen is a better way to power cars than batteries, but making it mobile has advantages. Another advance would be to heat the reactors by burning the waste gas (I’ve been working on that too, and have filed a patent). Sometimes you have to build things ahead of finding a customer — and this pump was awfully cool.

Tiger Sculpture at REB Research

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Here’s the latest REB Research sculpture: a saber-toothed tiger:

Saber-toothed Tiger sculpture at REB Research; the face follows you (sort of). Another sculpture, a bit of our 3 foot geodesic is shown in the foreground.

Saber-toothed Tiger sculpture at REB Research; the face follows you. A bit of our 3 foot geodesic dome is shown in the foreground.

It’s face follows you (somewhat); It was inspired by my recent visit to Princeton Univ — they had lots of tiger statues, but none that looked eerie enough as you walked by. Click here for: YouTube movie.

Normally, by the way, REB Research makes hydrogen generators and other hydrogen stuff. May 1, 2013

Metals and nonmetals

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Hydrogen is both a metal an a non-metal. It says so on the specially produced coffee cups produced by my company (and sold by my company) but not on any other periodic table i’ve seen. That’s a shame for at least two reason. First, on a physiochemical level, while hydrogen is a metal in the sense that it combines with non-metals like chlorine and oxygen to form HCl and H2O, it’s not a metal in how it looks (not very shiny, malleable, etc.). Hydrogen acts like a chemical non-metal in the sense that it reacts with most metals to form metal hydrides like NaH CaH2 and YH3 (my company sells metal hydride getters, and metal membranes that use this property), and it also looks like a non-metal; it’s a gas like non-metallic chlorine, fluorine, and oxygen.

REB Research, Periodic table coffee cup

REB Research, Periodic table coffee cup

Most middle schoolers and high schoolers learn to differentiate metals and nonmetals by where they sit on the periodic tables they are given, and by general appearance and feel, that is by entirely non-scientific methods. Most of the elements on the left side of their periodic tables are shiny and conduct electricity reasonably well, so students come to believe that these are fundamental properties of metals without noting that boron and iodine (on the right side) are both shiny and conduct electricity, while hydrogen (presumably the first metal) does not. Students note that many metals are ductile without being told that calcium and chromium are brittle, while boron and tin (non-metals) are ductile. And what’s with the jagged dividing line: some borderline cases, like aluminum, look awfully metallic by normal standards.

The actual distinction, and the basis for the line, has nothing to do with the descriptions taught in middle school, but everything to do with water. When an element is oxidized to its most common oxide and dissolved in water the solution will be either acidic or basic. This is the basis of the key distinction: we call something a metal if the metal oxide solution is basic. We call something a non-metal if the oxide solution is an acid. To make sulfuric acid or nitric acid: you dissolve the oxides of sulfur or nitrogen respectively, in water. That’s why nitrogen and sulfur are nonmetals. Similarly, since you make boric acid by dissolving boron oxide in water boron is a non-metal. Calcium is a metal because calcium oxide is lime, a strong base. Aluminum and antimony are near borderline cases, because their oxides are nearly neutral.

And now we return to hydrogen and my cup. hydrogen is the only element listed as both a metal and a non-metal because hydrogen oxide is water. It is entirely neutral. When water dissolves in water the pH is 7; by definition, hydrogen is the only real borderline case. It is not generally shown that way, but it is shown as a metal and a non metal is on a cup produced by my company.

Link

Some 2-3 years ago I did an interview where I stood inside one of our hydrogen generator shacks (with the generator running) and poked a balloon filled with hydrogen with a lit cigar — twice. No fire, no explosion, either time. It’s not a super hit, but it’s gotten over 5000 views so far. Here it is

New hydrogen generator from REB Research

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Here’s the new, latest version of our Me150 hydrogen generator with our wonder-secretary, Libby, shown for scale. It’s smaller and prettier than the previous version shown at left (previous version of Me150, not of secretary). Hydrogen output is 99.9999% pure, 9.5 kg/day, 75 slpm, 150 scfh H2; it generates hydrogen from methanol reforming in a membrane reactor. Pricing is $150,000. Uses about 7 gal of methanol-water ($6 worth) per kg of H2 (380 ft3). Can be used to fill weather balloons, cool electric dynamos, or provide hydrogen fuel for 2-10 fuel cell cars.

New REB Research hydrogen generator 150 scfh of 99.9999% H2 from methanol reforming

New REB Research hydrogen generator 150 scfh of 99.9999% pure H2 from methanol-water reforming against metal membranes.

Dr. Robert E. Buxbaum

Nuclear Power: the elephant of clean energy

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As someone who heads a hydrogen energy company, REB Research, I regularly have to tip toe about nuclear power, a rather large elephant among the clean energy options. While hydrogen energy looks better than battery energy in terms of cost and energy density, neither are really energy sources; they are ways to transport energy or store it. Among non-fossil sources (sources where you don’t pollute the air massively) there is solar and wind: basically non-reliable, low density, high cost and quite polluting when you include the damage done making the devices.

Compared to these, I’m happy to report that the methanol used to make hydrogen in our membrane reactors can come from trees (anti-polluting), even tree farming isn’t all that energy dense. And then there’s uranium: plentiful, cheap and incredibly energy dense. I try to ignore how energy dense uranium is, but the cartoon below shows how hard that is to do sometimes. Nuclear power is reliable too, and energy dense; a small plant will produce between 500 and 1000 MW of power; your home uses perhaps 2 kW. You need logarithmic graph paper just to compare nuclear power to most anything else (including hydrogen):

log_scale

A tiny amount of uranium-oxide, the size of a pencil will provide as much power as hundreds of train cars full of coal. After transportation, the coal sells for about $80/ton; the sells for about $25/lb: far cheaper than the train loads of coal (there are 100-110 tons of coal to a train-car load). What’s more, while essentially all of the coal in a train car ends up in the air after it’s burnt, the waste uranium generally does not go into the air we breathe. The coal fumes are toxic, containing carcinogens, carbon monoxide, mercury, vanadium and arsenic; they are often radioactive too. All this is avoided with nuclear power unless there is a bad accident, and bad accidents are far rarer with nuclear power than, for example, with natural gas. Since Germany started shutting nuclear plants and replacing them with coal, it appears they are making all of Europe sicker).

It is true that the cost to build a nuclear plant is higher than to build a coal or gas plant, but it does not have to be: it wasn’t that way in the early days of nuclear power, nor is this true of military reactors that power our (USA) submarines and major warships. Commercial nuclear reactors cost a lot largely because of the time-cost for neighborhood approval (and they don’t always get approval). Batteries used for battery power get no safety review generally though there were two battery explosions on the Dreamliner alone, and natural gas has been known to level towns. Nuclear reactors can blow up too, as Chernobyl showed (and to a lesser extent Fukushima), but almost any design is better than Chernobyl.

The biggest worry people have with nuclear, and the biggest objection it seems to me, is escaped radiation. In a future post, I plan to go into the reality of the risk in more detail, but the worry is far worse than the reality, or far worse than the reality of other dangers (we all die of something eventually). The predicted death rate from the three-mile island accident is basically nil; Fukushima has provided little health damage (not that it’s a big comfort). Further, bizarre as this seems the thyroid cancer rate in Belarus in the wind-path of the Chernobyl plant is actually slightly lower than in the US (7 per 100,000 in Belarus compared to over 9 per 100,000 in the USA). This is clearly a statistical fluke; it’s caused, I believe, by the tendency for Russians to die of other things before they can get thyroid cancer, but it suggests that the health risks of even the worst nuclear accidents are not as bad as you might think. (BTW, Our company makes hydrogen extractors that make accidents less likely)

The biggest real radiation worry (in my opinion) is where to put the waste. Ever since President Carter closed off the option of reprocessing used fuel for re-use there has been no way to permanently get rid of waste. Further, ever since President Obama closed the Yucca Mountain burial repository there have been no satisfactory place to put the radioactive waste. Having waste sitting around above ground all over the US is a really bad option because the stuff is quite toxic. Just as the energy content of nuclear fuel is higher than most fuels, the energy content of the waste is higher. Burying it deep below a mountain in an area were no-one is likely to live seems like a good solution: sort of like putting the uranium back where it came from. And reprocessing for re-use seems like an even better solution since this gets rid of the waste permanently.

I should mention that nuclear power-derived electricity is a wonderful way to generate electricity or hydrogen for clean transportation. Further, the heat of hot springs comes from nuclear power. The healing waters that people flock to for their health is laced with isotopes (and it’s still healthy). For now, though I’ll stay in the hydrogen generator business and will ignore the clean elephant in the room. Fortunately there’s hardly any elephant poop, only lots and lots of coal and solar poop.

 

How is Chemical Engineering?

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I’m sometimes asked about chemical engineering by high-schoolers with some science aptitude. Typically they are trying to decide between a major in chemistry or chemical engineering. They’ve typically figured out that chemical engineering must be some practical version of chemistry, but can’t quite figure out how that could be engineering. My key answer here is: unit operations.

If I were a chemist trying to make an interesting product, beer or whisky say, I might start with sugar, barley, water and yeast, plus perhaps some hops and tablets of nutrients and antimicrobial. After a few hours of work, I’d have 5 gallons of beer fermenting, and after a month I’d have beer that I could either drink or batch-distill into whisky. If I ran the cost numbers, I’d find that my supplies cost as much to make as buying the product in a store; the value of my time was thus zero and would not be any higher if I were to scale up production: I’m a chemist.

The key to making my time more valuable is unit operations. I need to scale up production and use less costly materials. Corn costs less than sugar but has to be enzyme processed into a form that can be fermented. Essentially, I have to cook a large batch of corn at the right temperatures (near boiling) and then add enzymes from the beer or from sprouted corn and then hold the temperature for an hour or more. Sounds simple, but requires good heat control, good heating, and good mixing, otherwise the enzymes will die or won’t work or the corn will burn and stick to the bottom of the pot. These are all unit operations; you’ll learn more about them in chemical engineering.

Reactor design is a classical unit operation. Do I react in large batches, or in a continuous fermentor. How do I hold on to the catalyst (enzymes); what is the contact time; these are the issues of reactor engineering, and while different catalysts and reactions have different properties and rates, the analysis is more-or-less the same.

Another issue is solid-liquid separation, in this case filtration of the dregs. When made in small batches, the bottoms of the beer barrel, the dregs, were let to settle and then washed down the sink. At larger scales, settling will take too long and will still leave a beer that is cloudy. Further, the dregs are too valuable to waste. At larger scales, you’ll want to filter the beer and will want to do something to the residue. Centrifugal filtration is typically used and the residue is typically dried and sold as animal feed. Centrifugal filtration is another unit operation.

Distillation is another classical unit operation. An important part here is avoiding hangover-producing higher alcohols and nasty tasting, “fusel oils.” There are tricks here that are more-or-less worth doing depending on the product you want. Typically, you start with a simple processes and equipment and keep tweaking them until the product and costs are want you want. At the end, typically, the process equipment looks more like a refinery than like a kitchen: chemical engineering equipment is fairly different from the small batch equipment that was used as the chemist.

The same approach to making things and scaling them up also applied in management situations, by the way, and many of my chemical engineering friends have become managers.

Robert Buxbaum is now on the board of a new charity

I’m now on the board of directors for two non-profits (lucky me), plus for my own hydrogen company, REB Research. My first charity seat is for The Jewish Heritage Foundation; it’s really one rabbi who takes donations to make tapes about topics he finds interesting. He then gives away or sells the tapes. We meet once a year to go over the finances and decide what his salary ought to be — basically we rubber stamp.

The second board seat, one I’ve been elected/appointed to just this week, is with a group call “The First Covenant Foundation” they’re semi-religious, trying to get people to behave decently. The first covenant is the one with Noah — God won’t destroy the earth but we have to behave sort-of OK. It’s certainly worthwhile to get people to keep to this minimal standard: no murder, no bestiality, don’t eat the limbs off of living creatures… Then again, if God has trouble keeping folks to this standard, I’m not sure how effective the 1st covenant will be. So far they’ve done nothing illegal or immoral that I’ve seen, so that’s good. Unlike with my first my board position, my contract with first covenant includes a sanity clause. They’re more inclusive that way; as expected, the Jewish heritage group didn’t believe in any sanity clause.

As for REB Research, our aims are simpler: to make and sell good hydrogen-related products, to make money, to pay our workers and creditors, and to develop our workers through training associated with the making and selling of good hydrogen products. Simple enough. My board meets 3 or 4 times a year over pizza; the salary of board members is the pizza. So far we haven’t done anything illegal either, that I know of — and we’re even making money.

A visit to the Buxbaum laboratory from Metromedia

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It’s a slow news day in Detroit, so the folks from Metromedia came to visit my laboratory at REB Research. You can visit too. We’re doing cool stuff most of the time, we’re working on a hydrogen-fueled plane that stays aloft for weeks (not that cool, actually, the Hindenberg did it in the 30s). On this particular day I’ve got a cool hat on, and a beige suit. I’m putting hydrogen in my car. Hydrogen increases the speed of combustion, and so it adds to milage — or it has when we’ve added it from electrolysis sources.buxbaum-003

The fun thing about science is that there are always surprises.

Adding hydrogen to a Malibu at REB Research

Adding hydrogen to a Malibu at REB Research

Small hydrogen generators for cooling dynamo generators

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A majority of the electricity used in the US comes from rotating dynamos. Power is provided to the dynamos by a turbine or IC engine and the dynamo turns this power into electricity by moving a rotating coil (a rotor) through a non-rotating magnetic field provided by magnets or a non-rotating coil (a stator). While it is easy to cool the magnets or stator, cooling the rotor is challenging as there is no possibility to connect it cooling water or heat transfer paste. One of the more common options is hydrogen gas.

It is common to fill the space between the rotor and the stator with hydrogen gas. Heat transfers from the rotor to the stator or to the walls of the dynamo through the circulating hydrogen. Hydrogen has the lowest density of any gas, and the highest thermal conductivity of any gas. The low density is important because it reduces the power drag (wind drag) on the rotor. The high heat transfer coefficient helps cool the rotor so that it does not burn out at high power draw.

Hydrogen is typically provided to the dynamo by a small hydrogen generator or hydrogen bottle. While we have never sold a hydrogen generator to this market, I strongly believe that our membrane reactor hydrogen generators would be competitive; the cost of hydrogen is lower than that of bottled gas; it is far more convenient and safe; and the hydrogen is purer than from electrolysis.