Good Idea! Now find a better one.

The NewScientist Invention Blog noted a patent that used tiny glass microspheres embedded with paladium that would be used to hold hydrogen for energy storage instead of using a large highly compressed tank.

Placing the microspheres in a tank filled with hydrogen gas under pressure should cause the gas to seep through the pores to be absorbed by the palladium. The spheres could then be used to safely store and transport the hydrogen, which could be sucked back out using heat or vacuum pressure.

Why isn’t anyone looking for similar innovations for gasoline? Where’s the love for Gas?

Obviously this exact system wouldn’t work for gasoline, chemistry and physics are like that sometimes. But what about the principle? What if gasoline were stored in a form that still flowed like a liquid but couldn’t be easily ignited?

What possibilities does it open up? What else could you do with this technology as applied to gasoline if we had it right now?

• Could cars be given larger fuel capacity because of fewer risks?
• Could this non-volatile fuel be spread throughout the frame of the vehicle to dissipate energy in an accident?
• Could locations other than gas stations move in on the fuel market?
• With less danger of fire and/or explosions, regulations could be relaxed.
• Could gasoline engines be used in more situations, e.g. backup generator, where storing the fuel for extended periods was dangerous or impractical?
• Would it become practical to pump gasoline to buildings or locations where it was previously impossible?

Could those same “microspheres” that encapsulate the gasoline, be used to sequester the exhaust after the fuel is ignited? If so, where else could you operate a combustion engine that is currently impractical?

Interesting possibilities. There are many potential benefits here, perhaps someone with the expertise could find a few Good Ideas that would produce them.