by Toyota UK

Hydrogen is the simplest element on earth. Each small particle of an element of hydrogen has merely a single proton. It is a chief abundant gas in the world. Stars mainly consist of hydrogen. Basically, the sun is a massive sphere of helium and hydrogen gases. In the core of the sun, the atoms of hydrogen mingle to generate helium atoms. This gives off bright energy termed as ‘fusion’. The energy in turn maintains several lives on earth. It aids in cultivation of plants and provides people with light. It also facilitates rain and the blowing of wind. Hydrogen is stored in chemical energy form in the fossil types of fuels. The majority of energy used presently by people originated from the radiant energy of the sun.

A hydrogen car is a car that utilizes hydrogen as its fuel for the motive power. The terminology might refer to an individual car exclusively for transport purpose. These include automobiles and any the other cars that utilize hydrogen the same way like aircrafts. Power plants of these vehicles alter hydrogen chemical energy to mechanical energy. The methods used in the alteration process are; fuel-cell combustion and hydrogen internal combustion. In fuel-cell combustion, oxygen is combined with hydrogen to create electricity and water. The electricity is in turn used in powering electric traction motors. In the process involving combustion of hydrogen, the hydrogen is ignited in the engines basically using the same technique as the convectional ignition engine cars.

Presently, 9,000,000 metric tonnes of the hydrogen are manufactured in America. This is an adequate amount to power 30,000,000 vehicles and 8,000,000 homes. Most of the hydrogen is produced in only three states, namely: Louisiana, Texas and California. The produced hydrogen is utilized by the industry in treating metals, processing foods and refining. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has been the main user of hydrogen in place of energy fuel. Presently, there are 500 cars in America fueled by hydrogen, especially in California. Most cars include automobiles and buses, which are powered by the electric motors. They are able to store liquid and even hydrogen gas on board and change hydrogen to electricity specifically for vehicles using fuel cells. However, only limited car types burn hydrogen directly, generating very little pollution. Owing to the outlay of producing the fuel cells, current fuel cost for the cell cars significantly go beyond that of the conventional cars in most countries. This has made the hydrogen cars move to the roads from the laboratory.

Hydrogen has huge potential as the environmentally hygienic fuel plus means of reducing dependence on energy sources that are imported. Before performing a superior energy responsibility and grow to be an extensively used substitute of gasoline, a number of upcoming systems and facilities should be built. Manufacturers will require facilities for making hydrogen, storing it, and transporting it. They will also require inexpensive fuel cells. Users will in turn require the necessary expertise, education and information so as to use it safely.

Question by Vegan77: Benefit of hydrogen-oxygen fuel cells compared to natural gas, batteries, and gasoline?

What is the cost benefit-analysis for the use of hydrogen fuel cells in automobiles versus the use of gasoline, electricity via batteries, or natural gas?

Best answer:

Answer by Nata T
the cost versus benefit ratio is infinite. ie cost = X benefit = 0, by definition if Y =X / 0 is X is a positive real number, then Y = infinity

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This article about hydrogen hybrid cars discusses how cars can run on hydrogen and fuel cells, but also hybrid batteries, safety, brands and models, and availability.

Introduction

Nowadays, people are aggressively searching for more ways on how they could save on gas. In effect, companies are being pressured to offer something new to consumers other than their conventional cars. This is evident with their notable development of new technologies that are obviously aimed for fuel economy; one of which would be the hydrogen hybrid car.

Combining Two Innovative Technologies

Hydrogen technology and hybrid technology are two different innovations that are used to save gas, increase your vehicle’s power and most of all, make your car more environmental friendly in contrast to conventionally fuelled vehicles. Considering each of them are already powerful solely by themselves, just imagine if these two technologies are combined!

Well, here’s the good news, manufacturers have been working on hydrogen hybrid cars and they have finally come up with vehicles that support both of the said technologies! So, here are the essentials on what you should know about hydrogen powered hybrid cars.

How Does It Work?

Hydrogen hybrid cars actually make use of fuel cells. Major carmakers, focus on fuel cells, since they say it’s more clean and efficient than mere hydrogen internal combustion engines alone. Rather than burning fuel inside the engine, fuel cells would act more like batteries, where they would use electrochemical reaction between oxygen and hydrogen to produce electricity.

One company that is known to develop fuel cells would be Anuvu, which is actually almost prepared to produce large cargo vans and Nissan Frontier pickups that run on hydrogen and fuel cells.

A Deeper Look

What the company is selling are actually hybrid fuel cell vehicles. This kind of vehicle is the kind that utilizes a quite small fuel cell system in order to provide power to an electric motor, which supplies all the heavy work for the vehicle to move. The car is quite similar to gas-electric hybrids, which are currently on the market. However, this time, the vehicle makes use of fuel cells rather than internal combustion engines.

The stack of fuel cells has the ability to recharge the hybrid battery. Nevertheless, the latter could also be recharged simply by plugging it to a wall. Experts consider it to be an electric car that has all advantages that a car of its kind could have minus the disadvantages.

Trouble Shooting

You wouldn’t have to worry about hydrogen leaks either. If ever one occurs, hydrogen hybrid car censors would shut down your fuel cell stack. Nevertheless, there’s no need to worry since you could still drive your vehicle for another 30 miles simply by using your vehicle’s hybrid battery.

Looking At Mazda

On the other hand, Mazda also has their mixed hybrid and hydrogen car to offer. This would be the Mazda 5, which is known as the Premacy Hydrogen Hybrid in Japan. Nevertheless, whatever name you want to call it, this car is actually a concept vehicle. It is a hydrogen minivan in style. They say that it was based on RX-8 Hydrogen RE car. Mazda 5 is a rotary mild-hybrid bi-fuel which is considered to be the first mass-marketed car of its kind.

The Specs

This car actually runs using both compressed hydrogen gas and gasoline. All you have to do is just press a button on its dashboard and you would transform this minivan to a green vehicle. Press again to change back again whenever you need more distance to be covered.

It introduces a gasoline / bi-fuel hydrogen internal combustion engine. This solves one of the major infrastructure issues circling around where users could buy hydrogen when fuel stations still dominate the main scene. By doing this, hydrogen manufacturers and distributors would be given the incentive and chance to take their distribution network to a massive scale.

This hydrogen hybrid car’s rotary engine and hybrid unit are transversely mounted in front of the car having a layout for a front-wheel drive. Additionally, it has a high-voltage battery underneath its 2nd row of seats. The gasoline tank is also near the high-voltage battery, while you can find the hydrogen tank next to the back seats. This kind of arrangement provides you a roomy and comfortable interior. It also gives you excellent driving performance along with environmental benefits.

Question by Overt Operative: Will hydrogen fuel cell technology never develop because it can’t be taxed like gasoline?

Gasoline, diesel, and even biofuels can carry a per gallon federal tax. Federal tax on fuel exceeds oil company profits on fuel. Revenue from fuel tax is a major source of income for the treasury.
Federal money is being spent to develop biofuels rather than hydrogen fuel cells, a cleaner form of energy. Our we losing out on better source of energy because it can’t raise the same amount of tax revenue as crude oil?

Best answer:

Answer by avail_skillz
actually federal money is being used to develop hydrogen fuel cells.
Penn State U, has made some recent advances in Hydrogen production, to increase the yield vs substrate reacted.
The biggest problem industry is seeing with hydrogen is finding an organism that will efficiently produce enough product to keep up with demand.
It can be taxed like any other gas that is sold for industrial use.

Add your own answer in the comments!

Yes, we can convert to a hydrogen economy. Don’t roll your eyes at me. It’s true. A total conversion to a hydrogen economy is possible in the near future. How is that (you may ask)? Well, we need an interim solution. I’m sure most of you already know how fuel cells work, but for those who don’t, let me explain very quickly…

There are many types of fuel cells, but the most common one is called a proton exchange membrane or PEM fuel cell. This type of fuel cell usually uses hydrogen, but other fuel types can also be used (such as methanol, ethanol etc). When methanol or ethanol is used, the name of the fuel cell changes to “direct methanol fuel cell” or “direct ethanol fuel cell”. Now, hydrogen is fed into the fuel cell, and a platinum/carbon catalyst breaks the hydrogen into protons and electrons. Since protons and electrons are charged species, they cannot exist for very long in nature because they are unstable. Everything in nature moves toward neutralization or a balance of energies. For example, if something is very hot in nature, the heat is distributed to its surroundings, and eventually the temperature of the very hot object equals the temperature of the environment.

In the case of ions, positively and negatively charged molecules cannot survive for very long without combining with another molecule to make it more stable. Now let’s get back to the discussion at hand — so in the fuel cell, the hydrogen is broken into protons and electrons. Normally protons and electrons would not be able to stay in the ionic form very long, but because the platinum/carbon catalyst layer is connected to the persulfonic acid membrane layer, the hydrogen protons are able to travel through the membrane to the cathode side of the fuel cell. In the meantime, the electrons are attracted to the hydrogen flow field plate, which is also pressed against the fuel cell layer and is highly conductive. The electrons are then drawn from the fuel cell catalyst layer to power the load. The protons that traveled over to the cathode through the membrane then combine with oxygen coming into the fuel cell and create water. Interesting stuff, huh?

Okay Colleen, how a fuel cell works is interesting, but how are we going to convert over to the hydrogen economy? Well, first I had to explain how the hydrogen is actually used — and now I will get into how our current economy can be converted into a hydrogen one. So, do you know where hydrogen currently comes from? There is a lot of information out there on how fuel cells work, the benefits of fuel cells, and how we would be much better off using them. But, rarely do these articles get into the sticky situation of discussing where the hydrogen comes from. Well, as many of you probably know, hydrogen is not available on this planet in a purely gaseous form. It’s found everywhere in nature, but it is combined with other elements to form other types of molecules. Therefore, the hydrogen has to be manufactured.

Many of you will not like to hear this (and I even cringe at saying it), but most of the hydrogen gas currently produced is created from petroleum-based fuels. Aha (you say)! I knew there was a catch to this! Okay, okay, okay I admit — it does seem to be a sticky situation. But, at least we currently have a way that hydrogen is manufactured. At first glance it seems like this may not be any better than our current solution — but it is. The reason why this is a better solution is because hydrogen can be manufactured using many different methods. The interim solution for converting to a hydrogen economy would be to use petroleum-based fuels and coal. Now you’re probably thinking — this person must be totally out of whack! Well, speaking from an engineer’s perspective, coal is not that bad of an interim solution. There are many reasons why I say this:

1. Experts estimate that there is only 30 years of petroleum-based fuels left on this planet.

2. In the United States alone, it is estimated that we have 300 years of fuel from coal that can be utilized.

3. Countries that tap into their coal resources can be more independent, stronger and richer than countries that rely on petroleum-based fuels.

4. The Clean Coal Technologies program in the United States (instituted in 1986), has commercialized numerous technologies for preventing pollution caused by coal processing. Coal is no longer the “dirty fuel” that it used to be.

5. There are already numerous coal processing plants across the United States and many parts of the world. In the United States, half of the electricity is generated by coal. Therefore, new plants may not need to be constructed. We can have plants that generate electricity and hydrogen. A current project that’s utilizing this concept is the FutureGen project, which is funded by the United States government and private industry.

Okay, you say “that’s nice.” Why would we go through all this trouble to generate hydrogen from petroleum-based fuels and coal? Well, it’s a good question. Our petroleum and coal resources are limited. A much better solution for future generations would be using pure hydrogen. So, you may ask, what are the other manufacturing methods for producing hydrogen? Well, there are many different fuels and methods that can be used to produce hydrogen. Some of these include:

1. Nuclear energy

2. Biomass

3. Biofuels

4. Water electrolysis

Preliminary studies have shown that it is more expensive to use hydrogen from petroleum-based fuels, coal, biomass and biofuels because of the cost of producing hydrogen. The cost can be decreased. Current estimates are based upon small quantities of hydrogen produced. And there have not been many studies conducted with biomass, biofuels or water electrolysis. The best solution for hydrogen production is water electrolysis. You will not hear about this much, because large corporations are a factor in determining the outcome of the fuel cell industry. If they had their way, we would only use fuel cells that are gasoline-fed or all of the hydrogen would be generated from petroleum-based fuels. But there are better solutions.

Now let’s get back to creating the hydrogen economy. Okay, so you say that there are many ways to produce hydrogen? Yes. Okay, so how does this translate into a hydrogen economy? I’ve heard that the cost to change the current infrastructure to hydrogen would be so tremendous that it wouldn’t even be worth doing. I’m not going to lie to you — it will be costly to change the infrastructure. But, we’ll have to do it at some point. There are many countries that are racing to get to this point sooner rather than later. For example, Japan has the tightest timeline to convert to a hydrogen economy. Their goal is to have a hydrogen economy in place by the year 2020. This is definitely within all of our lifetimes. So, additional factors to think about are hydrogen storage and transport. There are many types of hydrogen storage that are already used, and can be cheaply manufactured if mass-produced. The transport may be more of a challenge. One solution is to have many plants (as mentioned earlier) that produce electricity and hydrogen all over the country, therefore, making the transport costs low. Perhaps the best option, (or the one this author favors the most), is using solar panels to break water into hydrogen and oxygen, and then directly feeding the hydrogen into the fuel cell. There are a few hydrogen gas stations in California that utilize this concept. The solar panels are actually built onto the gas station roof to supply hydrogen to the pumps. Imagine using this concept by having solar panels on everyone’s house or car to generate all of electricity required! There are numerous ways that hydrogen can be generated, and there are countless configurations for hydrogen storage and use.

Yes, the transition from a petroleum-based to a hydrogen-based economy will be expensive, but what’s more costly in the long run? Isn’t it more costly to use petroleum-based fuels whose resources are limited, to be a slave to the rising gas prices, to be dependent on other countries for fuel, and spend billions of dollars for wars that are most likely due (on some level) to our dependence on petroleum? What is actually more costly?

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waterpetrolcar.com A real case scenario shot on location to use water to run your car with better performance and efficiency. Part 2 coming soon. water fuel cell water fuel hybrid cars hho hydrogen conversion h2o fuel cell water for gas