The machine of the future is here today . Of course , you ca n’t buy one yet ; but if you live in California you could hire one . It does n’t utilise gasoline and it does n’t foul the air . In fact , it produces steam instead of exhaust . So what ’s the secret fuel ? Hydrogen – the unsubdivided and most abundant element in the universe of discourse . And some people reckon that in 20 to 30 days , we ’ll all be tug these hydrogen - powered , fuel - efficient vehicle .
Although hydrogen - power cars have a science fable quality to them , the idea is n’t really unexampled . in reality , the engineering science for using hydrogen to generate power has been around since the first part of the nineteenth century – that ’s tenacious than car have been around . What ’s novel is that you might really see a hydrogen - powered car on the route , with steam coming out of its exhaust pipage instead of foul - reek gas . Several hydrogen motorcar are now in existence , but most of them are concept motorcar . These eco - friendly drive machines let in the Chevrolet Equinox , the BMW 745h and the one that ’s presently usable for term of a contract in California , the Honda FCX .
What make a hydrogen car potential is a gadget call afuel cell , which convert atomic number 1 to electrical energy , chip in off only heat and water as byproducts . Because it ’s non - polluting , hydrogen seems like the ideal fuel for the 21st century . A lot of hoi polloi in the political science and the auto industriousness are excited about its potential . Hydrogen cars have the potential to be fuel - effective and tender the hope of eco - friendly , gullible drive . But there are still a lot of problems that require to be subdue and inquiry that require to be answered before hydrogen becomes the fuel of option for enough the great unwashed to make much divergence in our current employment of fossil fuel . For instance , where will we get the hydrogen ? How expensive will these fuel - efficient cars be to purchase ? Will you be able-bodied to get hold a hydrogen fuelling post to fill again your tank ? And , perhaps most importantly , as a fuel , is hydrogen really as non - polluting as it seems ?
We ’ll look at those enquiry in the pages that follow , but we can give you one quick answer right on now : Unless you happen to subsist in very specific parts of the land and have pockets lined with immediate payment , do n’t expect a atomic number 1 car in your driveway within the next decennary .
Hydrogen Fuel Cells
In 1839 , the Welsh scientist Sir William Robert Grove assume the familiar electrochemical mental process of electrolysis , which uses electrical energy to produce hydrogen from water , and reversed it , generating electrical energy and piss from hydrogen . He called his invention a gun Gur battery , but today we know it as a hydrogen fuel cell . Much later , in the middle of the twentieth century , the technology was further developed by the inventor Francis Bacon . The technology that these two inventors get up is essential to the operation of a atomic number 1 motorcar .
The first pragmatic fuel mobile phone system was uprise in the early sixties by General Electric for manipulation in orbital place capsule . And then , in the 1990s fuel cell began appearing in metropolis jitney . so we know that powering vehicles with fuel cells is feasible . you could opine of a fuel cell as a kind of battery , except that while a battery keeps its fuel inside itself , a fuel cell needs to be refilled . The fuel for a atomic number 1 fuel jail cell is , as the name suggest , hydrogen . As you might recall from high school alchemy class , hydrogen is the simplest of all component . An atom of H consists of a single electron and a individual proton . The fuel cell generates electrical energy by undress the electrons from the protons and using the electrons to make a gross watercourse of electricity . The ionised hydrogen atoms then mix with atomic number 8 to form water . The other byproduct of this summons is heating , so this water generally takes the pattern of steam . How ’s that for eco - friendly drive ?
The type of fuel cell used in cars is the polymer interchange membrane ( or PEM ) fuel cubicle . PEM fuel mobile phone have the reward of being light and small . They consist of two electrodes ( a negatively charged anode and a positively charged cathode ) , a catalyst and a membrane . Hydrogen is forced into the fuel cell at the anode in the form of H2 molecules , each of which arrest two hydrogen atoms . A catalyst at the anode breaks the molecule into hydrogen ion ( the proton ) and a flow of electrical energy ( the electrons ) . The ion make it through the membrane , but the electricity has to go around . While it ’s doing so , it can be rein in to do work . Just as hydrogen is squeeze into the fuel cell at the anode , oxygen is draw in at the cathode . The proton and electrons reunite at the cathode and join with the oxygen to form water , most of which become the fuel cell ’s exhaust . Fuel cells are designed to be monotone and sparse , in the main so they can be stacked . The more fuel cells in the stack , the greater the voltage of the electricity that the stack produces .
Many people retrieve that fuel - effective vehicles like hydrogen - powered automobile will be crucial in meeting the vigor demands of the twenty-first C . In 2003 , President George W. Bush announced a $ 1.2 billion Freedom Fuel Initiative in support of the growing of fuel cell engineering . Fuel cadre have two major reward over fossil fuels . First , they do n’t deplete the creation ’s finite provision of vegetable oil , which avail us save the existing supply and they could also reduce our dependency on strange oil . secondly , the only by-product from a fuel cell ’s operation is rut and urine , which means fuel cell do n’t bring on pollution . This is vitally important in a time when carbon emission from cars are think to be promoting globose thawing .
On the next page we ’ll wait at how H car and fuel cadre are bring about . And perhaps more significantly we ’ll look at where the hydrogen itself will come from .
Hydrogen Car Production
So how do manufacturing business in reality build fuel - efficient vehicles , like fuel mobile phone car ? Well , H car product is not immensely different from producing typical cars . Of naturally , the private road gearing , for instance , and the electric systems will be somewhat unique because a fuel cell creates electricity . Therefore , a hydrogen - power gondola and galvanizing car have a muckle in common in that respect . Perhaps a more important interrogative is how the atomic number 1 itself will be produce . Given that hydrogen is the most abundant ingredient in the universe , constituting roughly 90 percent of the atoms in macrocosm , you ’d cogitate that this would n’t be a problem . Well , recall again . Hydrogen is also the light element in the creation and any uncontained hydrogen on the open of the Earth will immediately float off into outer space . What hydrogen remain on this planet is bounce with other elements in molecular form , most commonly in water ( H2O ) atom . And there happens to be a lot of H2O on the control surface of the Earth .
But how do we separate the hydrogen molecules in the water from the oxygen molecules ? And if we do n’t use water as a hydrogen reservoir , where else can we get atomic number 1 ?
The simple direction of start out hydrogen from water is the one that Sir William Grove know about more than 150 years ago : electrolysis . If you pass an galvanizing flow through piddle , the H2O molecule break down . Similar to fuel cell operation , this process utilise an anode and a cathode , usually made from sluggish metals . When an electric current is apply to the piddle , hydrogen forms at the cathode , and atomic number 8 forms at the anode . Although this outgrowth is slow , it can be done on a large scurf .
An alternative source for hydrogen is natural gas , which consists of by nature occurring hydrocarbon . A mental process squall steam Protestant Reformation can be used to separate the hydrogen in the gas from the carbon . At present , this is the most common method of industrial - ordered series output of hydrogen and would in all probability be the first method acting used to produce the atomic number 1 for fuel - cell vehicles . Unfortunately , this process use fogey fuels – the natural gas – so if the item of building cars that run on atomic number 1 is to avoid exhaust fogey fuel reserves , natural gas would be the worst possible beginning of this fuel .
Some expert have suggested that it might be possible to make miniature hydrogen plant life that will fit in the intermediate person ’s service department , so it wo n’t even be necessary to get to the local fueling station to fill up the car ’s hydrogen tank . The most utmost build of this idea has been the suggestion that electrolysis could be do inside the car itself , which would make possible the astounding thought of a car that runs on body of water ! However , the power for the electrolysis has to fall from some sorting of battery , so a water - powered car would need to be sporadically recharged .
So , are green driving machines like fuel - cell equipped vehicle really the cars of the future ? Many people hope so , but there are several possible barricade on the way to a world where people get around in cars that play on hydrogen . We ’ll look at those on the next page .
Hydrogen Car Setbacks
A heap of people conceive that H fuel cadre are the most important alternate fuel technology currently under development . It is not , however , without problems , and it may be decades before fuel cadre technology is in wide use . We can roughly group the problems with H into three categories : the costs of developing the technology , difficulty and danger with atomic number 1 storage and the possibility that this " non - polluting technology " is n’t so non - polluting after all . Here are some of the hydrogen elevator car blow that we can expect to cope with in the near future .
The costs of developing atomic number 1 technology are in high spirits . Not only do we have to design and develop the fuel cells and the car , but we have to develop an base to support these fuel - effective vehicles . Imagine if you currently owned a hydrogen railcar . Where would you go to sate your tank ? take over you do n’t have a atomic number 1 yield facility in your service department , you ’ll require a atomic number 1 refueling station , and the only station where any pregnant number of such stations exists at the moment is in the state of California , where Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has committed to confirm a hydrogen future . Some of the more pessimistic appraisal have placed the cost of build an substructure that will allow for a significant act of hydrogen railcar to be as high as $ 500 billion – and the fourth dimension to produce the infrastructure as long as four ten !
The price of the railway car is high , too . With platinum as the most widely used accelerator in the fuel cells , the price of a undivided fuel cadre fomite is currently more than $ 100,000 and even perhaps substantially more , which is why the only hydrogen cars available for you to ram at the moment are for lease , not for sales event . Few mass are in a position to afford such an expensive cable car . Other accelerator are being developed which will credibly be less expensive than atomic number 78 , but nobody have sex how soon they ’ll be useable for large - scale economic consumption .
The warehousing problem is also a thorny one . Hydrogen is a gas and it likes to spread out . arrange it in a car think of gouge it down to a fair size , and that is n’t easygoing . what is more , hydrogen gets strong while it ’s sitting in the tank of a park elevator car , which induce the gas to expand . This means that the tank have to ventilate the H periodically from the car . Leave a hydrogen automobile sit around for more than a few days and all the fuel will be gone . Hydrogen is also extremely inflammable – the spectacular detonation of the dirigible Hindenburg in the thirties is believed by some to have been the outcome of a hydrogen fire – so , if the hydrogen gets out of the cooler , it has the potential to be life-threatening . luckily , atomic number 1 fires are n’t as red-hot as gasoline ardour and are less likely to start subaltern fires . And because hydrogen rises , most escaped hydrogen will float away before it can actually do any impairment .
And is H really non - polluting ? A fuel cubicle produce only heat and water as exhaust , but the processes used to create the hydrogen are not necessarily as clean . Electrolysis habituate electricity and that electricity will often come from plants that fire ember , a extremely polluting source . And when hydrogen is evoke from natural gas , it produces carbon emission , which is exactly what we ’re trying to avert by using H in the first place .
Many citizenry think that we ’ll master these obstacles eventually , but it ’s go to be difficult . Others believe that our best bet for fuel efficiency and eco - friendly drive in the near time to come lie not in hydrogen but in hybrid electrical vehicle , like the Toyota Prius , the Ford Fusion loanblend and other similar hybrid railway car . Still , it ’s possible that within the next couple of decades , you just might own a atomic number 1 fuel prison cell car .
For more information about alternative fuels , intercrossed cars and other related topics , follow the links the next page .
