LLNL Licenses Carbon Aerogel for Hydrogen Production

24 September 2006

The Regents of the University of California, under its US Department of Energy (DOE) contract to manage and operate Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, have licensed the rights to manufacture and to market carbon aerogel worldwide to CDT Systems except for capacitor fields of use.

The LLNL license—the second such to CDT—specifically authorizes CDT Systems to manufacture carbon aerogel for use as an electrode for the generation of hydrogen from water by hydrolysis and the development of proprietary variable pore-size carbon aerogel electrodes.

CDT Systems—primarily a water purification company—currently has a patent license agreement with LLNL for Capacitive Deionization Technology for brackish water/sea water desalination and treatment of heat exchanger and boiler water, industrial and commercial process water and ultrapure industrial water.

Capacitive Deionization relies on the separation of ions from solution by applying an electric field between carbon-aerogel electrodes. Cations and anions are electrosorbed onto the carbon aerogel of the cathode and anode, respectively. Regeneration is accomplished by electrically discharging the electrodes and yields a stream of purified water and a concentrated reject stream similar to membrane and ion exchange processes. CDI systems potentially use 10–20 times less energy per gallon and achieve the same results as a convention electrodialysis or RO system.

CDT Systems’ manufacturing facility is scheduled to initially produce 80,000 square feet of proprietary carbon aerogel electrodes per month. Current carbon aerogel applications include brackish water desalination, industrial and coalbed methane groundwater water remediation, hydrogen generation and carbon aerogel for CDT Systems’ alliance partners’ technologies.

In November 2005, CDT entered an agreement with Energy Enhancement Technologies of Canada whereby Energy Enhancement will incorporate CDT Systems carbon aerogel technology as the Hydrogen Generator in its process for hydrogen/oxygen stream injection into air/fuel mixtures for internal combustion engines.

The Carbon Aerogel Hydrogen Generator is an integral component of the air intake systems which will initially be installed on diesel locomotives. The hydrogen system will increase performance, reduce fuel consumption by more than 20% and significantly reduce engine emissions.

—Jack Cohen, President of Energy Enhancement Inc

The carbon aerogel nanostructure provides a hydrogen/oxygen collection area that is 60,000 times the surface area of the aerogel, which provides for increased hydrogen output while using less amperage in the hydrogen generation. With carbon aerogel technology, no caustic chemicals are necessary to produce the electrolytic effect and as such, a closed loop system of recovering water from the exhaust system is practical.

EET planned to first target the diesel electric locomotive, stationary generator and ocean-going vessel markets.

Resources:

• CDT Capacitive Deionization Technology

• Carbon-Aerogel Capacitive Deionization of Water (LLNL)

• LLNL Aerogels