PULLMAN – Washington State University faculty member M. Grant Norton envisions a day when filling up at the fuel pump will be a thing of the past.
It’s a vision that relies on hydrogen gas, a potentially clean, alternative fuel that currently eludes our tanks, primarily because there are no reasonable mechanisms for storing the highly explosive gas.
Norton, associate dean of research and graduate programs, College of Engineering and Architecture, will address how nanotechnology could solve the latter problem. He and his colleagues have come closer to realizing a fuel tank that could safely store hydrogen. Their patent-pending nanospring technology could have various applications, including hydrogen fuel storage.
He will discuss his research in “Nanotechnology: The Power to Fuel an Energy Revolution” Nov. 15 at The Rainier Club, 840 4th Ave., Seattle.
Tickets are $30 per person and include lunch from noon to 1:30 p.m., with registration to begin at 11:30 a.m. To reserve a seat, visit https://www.wsu.edu/theinnovators/ or call (877) 978-3868. Registration will continue until capacity is reached.
There are prototype fuel cell cars that run on hydrogen, said Norton, but currently there is no commercial product. “Buses in Vancouver, B.C., and in Chicago and other cities have hydrogen fuel cells with a great big tank, and that’s fine because it’s a different kind of design,” he said. The busses, which typically move at 20 miles per hour, fail to reach the same performance levels drivers expect from cars.
Even with this discovery, don’t expect to see a hydrogen fuel tank in the immediate future. “It’s not going to be next year-probably not even 10 years-that you’ll be driving a hydrogen car,” Norton said.
Until matters of basic science become high public priority, leading to informed public discourse, public policy will likely remain slow to change.
“If you are going to have any major change in the energy program you need to have the public on board. Otherwise the legislature, which works in two-and four-year increments, isn’t going to do anything dramatic… But, if the public is behind it, you can introduce a major type of approach, so that’s where our group is coming from… we are addressing the issue from multiple angles,” he said.
Norton has published more than 150 research articles and a book on X-ray diffraction. He belongs to several professional societies and is editor of Journal of Materials Science. He helped to organize the International Conference on Materials for Advanced Technologies in Singapore in 2005, and was on the organizing committee for the International Symposium on Reactivity of Solids in Minneapolis in 2006. He has received a number of outstanding teaching awards and was presented with a best paper award, Materials Division of the American Society for Engineering Education in 2002.
