This is only studies, there are no results. Till then the earth temperature is rising fast. Food prices are rising as profits for the richs. This website is working for the richs and is creating inflation. These researchers are finding nothing but are paid at high price.

This seems to combine a reversible PEM with MOF H2 storage, basically. I don't think any extra water is needed, it splits water, it makes water.

They have not addressed the platinum catalyst issue and costs. If you are going to mention lithium, you also need to talk about platinum.

Name a PEM in production without platinum.

@ SJC,
Several approaches to metal (platinum)free FCs have been published. Here's one of them:
http://phys.org/news/2013-06-metal-free-catalyst-outperforms-platinum-fuel.html

I wrote a considerable analysis on the efficiency of a fuel cell system, which we are continually told is hopeless compared to batteries.
Unfortunately I can't now locate where I stored it, but basically as Roger says it is fine as long as the hydrogen is made using CHP.

One wrinkle he has not mentioned is that there is no need for high pressure storage in the home, as the natural gas network can handle an admixture of hydrogen just fine with minimal adaption, and that can be pulled out of the natural gas network with minimal losses either for distribution in hydrogen stations or storage in salt caverns and other locations.
The size of the storage is enough to actually iron out seasonal variation, a subject which solar advocates at present really try to avoid, with nonsensical and wholly inaccurate claims that they are running on sunshine when they are doing no such thing.

That gives a thermal plus hydrogen generation efficiency comfortably north of 80%.

At the other end of the use, the hydrogen in cars is around 60% efficient, but the losses there are occurring where they can be put to use too, for heating the car.

Fuel cells are certainly not at their ultimate possible efficiency either.

So fuel cells, and hydrogen from natural gas or perhaps even solar in the home can be done at 'good enough' efficiency, and has the considerable advantage of enabling a potential solution to storage issues, which currently is simply not talked about by solar advocates.

@SJC:
Spot on that this is still not proven technology.

That was why I had not previously bothered posting to this thread, and did so only when Roger talked about CHP.

SOFC works fine in this application though, and does not use platinum.
I have suggested alternate means of hydrogen storage, so even if this does not pan out, it seems to me that a hydrogen fuel cycle is perfectly possible.

Basically, this is a unitized regenerative fuel cell (URFC) that integrates a metal hydride storage electrode into a reversible proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell - this is described in the article. NASA tested a URFC in 2003. However, this was not very efficient and used a lot of platinum.

A similar concept to the RMIT “proton flow” battery is being developed by GE and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory that they call a water based high energy density flow battery (see http://www.greencarcongress.com/2013/08/20130830-flow.html).

The GE/LBNL battery probably will not use any platinum. there are many examples, CellEra as Roger pointed out is platinum free, however it is an alkaline membrane fuel cell. The ACAL Energy PEM fuel cell is also platinum free at the cathode using a vanadium/molybdenum flow cathode. The GE/LBNL battery could be using a cathode similar to ACAL Energy except it may use an iron ion cathode as described in the above reference. On the anode side hydrogen would possibly come a metal borohydride (Dr. Grigorii L. Soloveichik of GE is an expert on these hydrides).
So technically the GE/LBNL concept is a redox flow battery, in reality it is a regenerative PEM fuel cell without any noble catalysts with very high energy density probably exceeding the energy density of Lithium Air batteries.

Bob:
I don't disagree with your basic argument that lithium carbonate is cheap and inexhaustible.

However, don't get confused between that and lithium.
Lithium carbonate is around 18% lithium by weight, and the Leaf uses around 4kg of lithium, not lithium carbonate.

So EVs use something under 1kg of lithium carbonate per kwh.

Refining the lithium carbonate to the required purity for car batteries is also pricey, and knocks the price up to something in the region of $50kg of lithium carbonate.

So the Leaf uses perhaps $1,100 worth of lithium carbonate, not too different from the present cost of platinum in fuel cells, in the new Toyota for instance, which uses 30 grams, around the same as a diesel car uses in its catalytic converter.

Both the use of platinum in fuel cells, and I would imagine, the refining costs of lithium carbonate can be reduced and do not represent an ultimate cost barrier.

gryf,

You assume ACAL is regenerative, I see no mention of that.
You assume these people are using ACAL, I see no mention of that.
Assuming can lead you off the path.

Thanks for the information, the GE project is in the very early stages and may not really work or be practical at all. Not being critical, just trying to be accurate.

The original discussion had to do with costs. If you have one of these at 24 kWh and compare to an EV battery pack of 24 kWh, what is the cost? Also, what is the power density? They do not say that you can get 200 kW out of this.

So, if a 24 kWh battery pack uses $100 worth of lithium and a 24 kWh storage PEM uses $1000 of platinum, you see my point. Plus pouch batteries are designed to be mass produced, they are still working out the details of making each PEM plate cheap. Then there is that power density factor...

Davemart, I do not see your point. The cost of noble metals in fuel cells isn't that high. There are fuel cells that use no expensive noble metals and are still ludicrously expensive. The cost are in manufacturing and assembly, fuel cells can't seem to get to the targets enthusiast groups (even entire government agencies) are talking about.

The average fuel cell cost is about $8000/kWe based on the total market divided by the total wattage.