Hydrogen car
A Hydrogen car is an automobile which uses hydrogen, generally obtained from water using electrolysis, as its primary source of power for locomotion. The main benefit of using pure hydrogen as a power source is that it uses oxygen from the air to produce only water vapor as exhaust. (This has absolutely nothing to do with fusion of hydrogen.)
Some hydrogen cars currently exist, but a significant amount of research has to be undertaken to make the technology viable. The common internal combustion engine, usually fueled with gasoline (petrol) or diesel liquids, can be converted to run on the gaseous hydrogen. However, the most efficient use of hydrogen involves the use of fuel cells and electric motors instead of a traditional engine. Hydrogen would react with oxygen inside the fuel cells, which would produce electricity to power the motors.
Two major obstacles exist in the development of a fuel cell-powered hydrogen car. The first problem is that hydrogen has a very low density. Even when the fuel is stored as a liquid in a cryogenic tank or in a pressurized tank as a gas, hydrogen cars have limited range compared to their conventional counterparts. Some research has been done into using special crystalline materials to store hydrogen at greater densities and with better safety margins.
Instead of storing molecular hydrogen on-board, some have advocated using hydrogen reformers to extract the hydrogen from more traditional fuels including methane, gasoline, and ethanol. Many environmentalists are irked by this idea, as it promotes continued dependence on fossil fuels (at least in the case of gasoline). However, given an efficient reforming process, a vehicle using reformed gasoline or ethanol to power fuel cells would still be more efficient than vehicles running internal combustion engines.
The other major problem involves the fuel cells that would provide electric power in a hydrogen car. Scientists are also working hard to figure out how to produce inexpensive fuel cells that are also robust enough to survive the bumps and vibrations that all automobiles have to handle. Most fuel cell designs are fragile and can't survive in such environments. Also, many designs require rare substances such as platinum in order to work properly.
An existing conventional car cannot easly be converted to run from hydrogen, due to a number of inherent differences in the technologies. Other renewable energy sources, like biodiesel, are more practical for existing automobile conversions.
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