Hydrogen Fuel

Honda finally unveiled their new solar hydrogen solar station and all signs point to a dramatic success. The station is smaller than previous models and enables an electric car owner to refill their fuel cell overnight. The unit should easily fit into a homeowners’ garage taking up significantly less space than previous models. The older model required a compressor and electrolyzer for it to be operational. One of the reasons the units were so big was because of the compressor that was required to run the unit. Not only that, the compressor was also the reason that the units were so expensive to produce and purchase. 5 Comments

Everyone is excited about hydrogen cars, but there is always the challenge of how they are going to fill up. Most cars are restricted by the distance that they can travel on a full tank and nothing more. Few places, especially on the East Coast, offer a refueling station to allow the cars to travel any further. If the hydrogen highway plan comes to fruition, that will finally change. 11 Comments

People are getting more and more excited about green automobiles, so it was kind of surprising to see such a neutral reaction to the Fuel Cell Car by Riversimple. While this project has a very interesting slant from other cars that we have seen in this niche, it was met with a very lukewarm reception and things have not really heated up on in yet. However, the Riversimple Fuel Cell Car continues on and will hopefully be available for release in the next few years. 4 Comments

Hydrogen is an extremely environment friendly fuel as when it burns it releases only water vapor into the atmosphere, but the problem is that it is not easy to store it because it needs to be stored like other compressed gases. A new solid may solve the problem. A nonreactive noble gas called xenon combined with hydrogen and other massive pressure gives rise to a solid that can be later used to store hydrogen fuel. The research paper is published in the November 22, 2009, advanced online publication of Nature Chemistry. The discovery initiates a new line of materials that which could render impetus to new hydrogen technologies. 5 Comments

Hydrogen is a strong contender to the generation-next clean and green fuel. Scientists are always trying to eliminate or minimize its drawbacks and maximize its benefits. They want to get rid of the intensive, high-energy process used when we need hydrogen as fuel. Because this process poses hurdle in the progress of hydrogen as clean and reliable alternative fuel. Scientists from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory are looking towards the wonder known as photosynthesis for some answers. Photosynthesis is the process from which plants generate energy and food in the presence of sunlight. Scientists think that photosynthesis might help providing answers so that we can utilize hydrogen as a fuel. 2 Comments

Surveillance and communication are the lifeline of the armed forces. These days they are utilizing small UAVs for naval missions. If the armed forces are using electric UAVs, they have the additional advantage. Electric UAVs can’t be detected from the ground. The Ion Tiger has just demonstrated the likelihood of a long endurance missions with an electric UAV. Naval forces can get a larger cruise range. Naval forces can reduce the number of daily launches and landings too. This increases the capability and yet naval crew can save on the time and effort fronts. 5 Comments

In our energy deprived world scientists are trying to find out various elements, alloys and substances that can provide clean and green energy along with meeting our energy demands. This quest has led them to superconductors. Superconductor materials have no electrical resistance. This property paves way for electrons to travel through them freely. Superconductor materials also carry large amounts of electrical current for long periods of time without losing energy as heat. Scientists are of the view that metallic hydrogen can prove to be a high-temperature superconductor. 6 Comments

A group of bright young Rensselaer students will soon take up the Hudson River, but with a difference. They are using a boat driven by clean and green hydrogen fuel. Their boat is the 22-foot New Clermont looked after by a three member crew. It is fitted with a pair of 2.2-kilowatt fuel cell units. 16 Comments

It seems simple but if put it into practice then we can develop real potential for hydrogen fuels. A new method of “recycling” hydrogen-containing fuel materials could pave the way for commercially viable hydrogen-based vehicles. An article published in world’s leading chemistry journal Angewandte Chemie, makes a claim about recycling hydrogen-containing fuel materials. Los Alamos National Laboratory and University of Alabama researchers working within the U.S. Department of Energy’s Chemical Hydrogen Storage Center of Excellence express a noteworthy progress in hydrogen storage science. 7 Comments

Italy has come up with world’s first hydrogen power plant. This power plant is situated in Fusina, near Venice in the Veneto region of Italy. Enel is constructing this power plant producing no undesirable greenhouse gases. It is Italy’s largest power company with a track record of fifty million power and gas customers. Enel is procuring hydrogen from an accompanying production from Polimeri Europa's petrochemical plant. This hydrogen will be brought to the establishment by especially built pipelines. Polimeri produces a wide range of petrochemical products, and its ethylene-cracking process will be responsible for the hydrogen feedstock. This hydrogen power plant will be operational in 2010. It will provide power to 20,000 households. 9 Comments

When researchers arrive at a particular after lots of experimentation they already have used up lots of resources in terms of money, man, material and time. Now scientists are trying to arrive at a result by simulating the experiments on computers and thus saving on lots of resources. A team of researchers from ETH Zurich are creating simulated autoignition with the help of a supercomputer equipped with 65,000 processors. This could lead to better models and reduction in cost of conducting actual experiments. No Comments

Hydrogen has great potential as a fuel of future because it is an environmentally clean energy fuel and save us from the undesirable side effects of greenhouse gases. Before becoming it a fuel of the masses we need necessary infrastructure to store it and move it. We will also need fuel cells on economical scale. To make hydrogen as a popular alternative fuel some engineers are working on storage factor of hydrogen fuel. They don’t want compressed hydrogen into a tank. They want to store hydrogen fuel into a large molecule. When we want hydrogen out of the molecule we will need a catalyst. Now, researchers have new details about one such catalyst. 3 Comments

Environmentalists are continuously searching for green and clean fuel. Until now they have been putting a lot of energy and talent into hydrogen fuels because when hydrogen is burned, the only emission it makes is water vapor. So it is a great advantage that burning of hydrogen doesn’t produce carbon dioxide. Clearly, hydrogen is less of a pollutant in the air because it emits little tail pipe pollution. Engineers at the University of Leeds are working on a project keeping hydrogen in mind. They are developing an energy efficient, environmental-friendly hydrogen production system but with a difference. They are trying to extract hydrogen from waste materials. These materials can be vegetable oil or the glycerol by-product of bio-diesel. They are aspiring for the high purity hydrogen-based fuel that could be utilized for large-scale power production. They are also developing hydrogen cells for laptops or other gadgets. A grant of over £400k has been awarded to the University by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) within a consortium of 12 institutions known as SUPERGEN Sustainable Hydrogen Delivery. 6 Comments

A new hydrogen car was unveiled in London, UK by Riversimple. This Riversimple Urban Car (RUC) is powered by fuel cells. These fuels cells combine hydrogen with oxygen from the air to release energy. What comes out from the exhaust pipe is not toxic fumes but water. Even using hydrogen fuel from source to car’s fuel tank, its carbon emissions for urban driving are only 30 grams/km. The weight of this hydrogen car is 772 pounds. You can travel 186 miles on just 2.2 pounds of liquid hydrogen. The Riversimple Urban Car is powered by a cheap, 6-kilowatt fuel. The car's top speed is 50 miles per hour (80.4672 kilometres per hour). It can be accelerated from 0 to 30 mph (48 km/h) in 5.5 seconds. 15 Comments

We are hearing about many inventions and discoveries in the alternative energy sector. But we don't get to read about many 'actual' finished products doing their work in real world. What we know is many models being tested in laboratories. But here we are seeing Bucher CityCat H2, the world's first municipal utility vehicle powered by fuel cells, made its debut last week in Basel, Switzerland. This street-cleaning CityCat will be doing her work on an eighteen months trial basis. It will be a matter of study that how this vehicle nicknamed as Bucher CityCat H2 be helpful in reducing air pollution than traditional diesel engines. Empa and the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) have, in collaboration with Bucher Schoerling, Proton Motor, BRUSA Elektronik AG und Messer Schweiz, developed a hydrogen powered municipal street cleaning vehicle that was unveiled to the public on 14th May 2009 in Basel. 7 Comments

Akira Fujishima, thirty-five years ago, discovered the electrochemical properties of titanium dioxide. He showed that titanium dioxide functioned as a photocatalyst. It produced hydrogen gas from water, electricity and sunlight. Scientists are quite hopeful regarding the qualities of Titania (or titanium dioxide). This is also known as white pigment. It’s used in many products be it paint, toothpastes or sunscreen lotions. Researchers have been exploring different ways to optimize the process started by Akira Fujishima. They want to develop a commercially viable technology that transforms cheap sunlight into hydrogen, a pollution-free fuel that can be stored and shipped. 4 Comments

We often want to imitate nature for near perfect results. But sometimes it just remains a desire. In its quest for green and clean energy mankind is searching for that magical method that can split water into hydrogen and oxygen. Nature performs this task wonderfully through the process of photosynthesis. Man is still facing challenges in duplicating that process in the laboratory. If we are able to split water into oxygen and hydrogen in the presence of sunlight we will be able to harness the potential of hydrogen as a clean and green fuel. Till date man-made systems are quite inefficient, time consuming, money consuming and often require additional use of chemical agents. 43 Comments

Environmentalists, common man, scientists, politicians, everyone want to breathe fresh and clean air and leave this earth in a better shape for next generation. Environmentalists and scientists are working to make this planet a better place to live. Hydrogen driven vehicles are a small step towards that goal. But the main hurdle to produce hydrogen vehicles on a mass scale is that they can’t store much fuel. Researchers at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor and Arizona State University have developed a sponge-like material, a new metal-organic framework that has a record breaking surface area. This kind of material can be very useful for many industrial applications such as catalysis, separation, and gas storage. 4 Comments

One of the main hurdles in the field of hydrogen car research is the development of a good fueling system. Professor Issam Mudawar along with his research team has developed a hydrogen storage system that would allow a car tank to be filled in five minutes and you can drive on that fuel for 300 miles. 6 Comments

Plants produce energy with the help of photosynthesis. One of the important steps of photosynthesis is splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen and release of energy in this process. Scientists are trying to duplicate this process in the laboratory for the production of energy i.e. hydrogen fuel. Hydrogen fuel is a clean and green alternative fuel. Now researchers are observing single oxygen atoms hopping on a metal oxide slab, glowing brighter here and dimmer there. This very process is helping chemists to understand how water splits into oxygen and hydrogen in a better way. This process is increasing the understanding of the chemical reaction that had previously only been talked about. This reaction will assist us in future to generate hydrogen fuel from water or to clean contaminated water. 6 Comments