Paraffin Wax
[R]esearch reported in the nature journal Scientific Reports has discovered that the storage of hydrogen in, and rapid evolution from, paraffin wax could be the solution.
The research team, cited as Gonzalez-Cortes, S. et al., has developed highly selective catalysts with the assistance of microwave irradiation, which can extract hydrogen from hydrocarbons instantly through a non-oxidative dehydrogenation process.
The wax material is safe, efficient and could facilitate its application in a HFCV. Most Importantly, hydrogen storage materials made of wax can be manufactured through completely sustainable processes utilising biomass or other renewable feedstocks.
Researchers at the universities of Oxford, Cambridge and Cardiff in the UK, and the [..] Saudi Arabia have shown that benign, readily-available heavy alkane hydrocarbon wax is capable of rapidly releasing large amounts of hydrogen—sufficient to meet the 7 wt% target set by the US DOE—through microwave-assisted catalytic decomposition.
This discovery, reported in an open-access paper in Scientific Reports, offers a new material and system for safe and efficient hydrogen storage and could facilitate its application in a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle. Hydrocarbon wax is the major product of the low temperature Fischer-Tropsch synthesis process from syngas and is currently thermally “cracked” to produce various fuels.