Champ Reactor

Corvidae

14th February 2008 - 08:42 PM

Tree Hugger article about the Champ reactor

Ok so these guys are looking at pulling co2 out of the fuel, storing it and dropping it off at the gas station when you refuel, rather than trying to pull it out of tailpipe emissions.

Might work, might not, I don't give it great odds myself.

What I'm wondering is if anyone has any information on how big this champ reactor is? Does it require an ICE to get it cranking? Will it scale down? What input/output ratios are we looking at for h2/co2?

Oddly enough I'm wondering if it would be an effective way to supply co2 to a fish tank, while using the h2 in a fuel cell to power the lights. Figure right now with my tiny set up I'm running about 500 watts of lights for 12 hours a day plus another 400 or so in pumps and heaters 24 hours a day. I need to output a bubble of co2 per second, per tank (3 tanks) to keep a steady ph.

It may not seem like a lot of power, but consider I run the lower end of medium light. If the power were cheaper/free I could easily double the lighting which would require the extra co2 for the plants.

Sapo

14th February 2008 - 08:51 PM

I think you missed with the link. Try this one:

Tree Hugger Article

And then, link back to the Georgia Tech article. It doesn't sound like it is much more than an engineering prototype at present, and it sounds suspiciously similar to a syngas ( CO + H₂ ) recycler that hasn't seen the light of day since the eighties. That, probably due to oil company pressures...

adoucette

14th February 2008 - 10:03 PM

QUOTE (Corvidae+Feb 14 2008, 03:42 PM)

Tree Hugger article about the Champ reactor

Ok so these guys are looking at pulling co2 out of the fuel, storing it and dropping it off at the gas station when you refuel, rather than trying to pull it out of tailpipe emissions.

Might work, might not, I don't give it great odds myself.

What I'm wondering is if anyone has any information on how big this champ reactor is? Does it require an ICE to get it cranking? Will it scale down? What input/output ratios are we looking at for h2/co2?

Oddly enough I'm wondering if it would be an effective way to supply co2 to a fish tank, while using the h2 in a fuel cell to power the lights. Figure right now with my tiny set up I'm running about 500 watts of lights for 12 hours a day plus another 400 or so in pumps and heaters 24 hours a day. I need to output a bubble of co2 per second, per tank (3 tanks) to keep a steady ph.

It may not seem like a lot of power, but consider I run the lower end of medium light. If the power were cheaper/free I could easily double the lighting which would require the extra co2 for the plants.

See: http://www.me.gatech.edu/MITf-Lab/MITf%20R...Fall%202007.pdf

I really don't think this is what you want to provide the 50 kWh per month of electricity that your 3 fish tanks are consuming.

You might (just suggesting) consider using SOLAR as a more GREEN solution to your lighting problem.

The low volumes of CO2 you use are easily supplied via a small refillable CO2 tank and regulator (now that CO2 is used for paint ball guns getting CO2 refills is easy).

Arthur

Corvidae

15th February 2008 - 02:49 AM

QUOTE

The low volumes of CO2 you use are easily supplied via a small refillable CO2 tank and regulator (now that CO2 is used for paint ball guns getting CO2 refills is easy).

I could use pressurized co2, which is the more common method. Generally the paint ball cannisters are frowned on because some of them contain lubricants. Although the information there says the champs reactor is putting out carbon monoxide along with the co2, so it has it's bad side as well.

The only reason it interested me was that a decent regulator costs around 100 to 130 dollars, another 60 or so for the tank. The rest of the equipment would be needed anyway. A small enough champs reactor could be viable for anywhere from $3-400 maybe $500 on the outside, if it also replaced the electricity costs and ran on a reasonable amount of unleaded. Plus it would have the advantage of powering the tank during a power outage. (After a hurricane, that could be a few weeks depending on damages) A week with no power can easily kill a lot of expensive livestock.

Also, at the moment I'm in an apartment. Installing solar cells isn't much of an option.

Looking at that info on it, the cost could be an issue though. I can't assume a palladium silver alloy nano-membrane would be cheap, no matter how small. Not to mention the carbon monoxide being a real show stopper.