Fuel Cell Disadvantages

phs Raw Data Pop Test Properties: “Pop-test” Properties of Hydrogen Gas faint pop followed by extinguishing of flame “Pop- test” Properties of Oxygen Gas no pop , flame not extinguished Relative Loudness and Distance Oxygen: Hydrogen Mole Ratio Relative Loudness Trial 1 Relative Loudness Trial 2 Relative Loudness Trial 3 Average Loudness Average Deviation Distance travelled (meters) 1:5 8.0 9.0 9.0 8.6 0.46 5.5 2:4 10.0 10.0 10.0 10 0 7.0 3:3 7.0 6.0 6.0 6.3 0.43 7.5 4:2 3.0 3.0 2.0 2.6 0.46 6.6 5:1 1.0 0.0 1.0 0.6 0.46 5.7 Average Deviation- 0.30 Maximum deviation- 0.46 Mole Ratio vs. Excess Parts O2 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 Parts H2 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 Reactant in Excess H2 H2 Neither O2 O2 O2 O2 Moles in excess 6 3 None 1.5 3 4.5 6 Calculations

could ultimately become obsolete with the hybrid car. There are other means of possible future solutions to our oil dependency, one being hydrogen fuel cars. This is my main personal solution to oil energy. The process of retracting hydrogen from water to be stored within a power cell is genius. This fuel cell is the power source for the car's engine to run. Maker's of this cell are attempting to develop a hydrogen power center than can be kept at the owner's residence for fuel fill-ups. The idea is for water to be pumped within this power center and then separate the hydrogen molecules to be stored within a hydrogen cell. This greater hydrogen cell within the center would be able to be pumped or drained into the car's power cell, ultimately creating an alternative fuel source for motor vehicles. With good intentions, there are already some companies sponsoring further research for this technology. "The FreedomCAR and Fuel Partnership includes the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), United States Council for Automotive Research (USCAR), whose members are DaimlerChrysler Corporation, Ford Motor Company and General Motors Corporation; and five major energy companies. The government research program supporting the partnership's goals is part of the administration's $1.7 billion initiative

The Hydrogen Fuel Cell could revolutionize the world. This ingenious technology, which creates electricity from the chemical reactions of hydrogen and oxygen has, in its 150-year history, passed many of the critical tests along the path from invention to innovation. Recent developments in fuel cell technology and concurrent developments within the energy and automotive industries have brought the world to brink of the fuel cell age and the hydrogen economy.

First, the article claims that the fuel cell engines utilize easily available , renewable resources. However, the professor refutes that by saying that the resources are not easily available. Although, hydrogen is available in water, but it's not usable. She said it must be in apurified liquid state and it's highly artificial, so the process of produce and stor the liquid hydrogen is not easy because

However, some pundits are concerned that adopting hydrogen energy as the sole strategy for the issues facing the automobile’s future is problematic because of the lengthy time frame in which they are projected to become ubiquitous. Furthermore, the present infrastructure for the distribution of hydrogen fuel sources or the production of hydrogen fuel cells is not only insufficient, but slow to develop. As such, fossil fuels are presently the main source for hydrogen production, which means that hydrogen vehicles do not successfully decouple the automobile from a fossil fuel economy. This is also widely inefficient because it will generate four times the carbon dioxide emissions generated by gasoline efficient automobiles. Furthermore, compressing hydrogen for the purposes of

The automotive industry is one of the largest industries in the entire world. As the world’s population grows and economic development occurs, the auto industry also expands. Unfortunately the growth in car numbers has had a negative environmenta, impact due to carbon dioxide and particulate emissions generated and released from the combustion process. Technology has developed a solution by utilizing the concept of hydrogen fuel cells. As the years have passed, there has been continuous development on automotive fuel cells and now it has come close to mass production of these vehicles. The main problem is the continued development of hydrogen fuel cells and their infrastructure may not be worth the cost.

Instead, if you use that electricity to split water, separate the hydrogen with extreme purity, pressurize it to crazy levels (or, even worse, liquefy), transfer it to a giant (even in liquid form) hydrogen storage tank in the car and then recombine it with oxygen to generate electricity, you would be lucky to get ~20% efficiency. Expensive, complex, bulky and super inefficient. It loses on every dimension.” Musk said in an email exchange with Tim Urban (Urban). Now on to gas engines they have over 200 parts to an electric engine’s 10.

The use of a hydrogen fleet, would solve many of the existing emissions issues associated with diesel fuel usage. ”Vision Motor calls their hydrogen tractor a Zero Emissions Terminal Tractor, or ZETA. It's the right thing for southern California because of its benefits to people's health, says LaRosa, citing lung and respiratory diseases blamed on exhaust smoke from internal combustion engines.” (http://www.truckinginfo.com/article/story/2012/04/hydrogen-fuel-cells-could-be-socal-fleets-future.aspx) Hydrogen offers no emissions in the air other than vapor, and fuel economy is better than most gasoline powered vehicles, roughly in the 30-50% range. Currently hydrogen is very costly to produce, and there isn’t enough infrastructure to support a full fleet of

With proper handling, hydrogen is as safe as any other fuels such as gasoline, diesel or natural gas – and in some instances even safer. For decades, codes and standard of handling hydrogen have been implemented and safe system designs have been developed. Now hydrogen is produced, shipped, distributed and used safely worldwide for the use in everything from welding to hydrogenated peanut butter. Over 50 million tonnes of hydrogen are produced annually worldwide. Hydrogen is the most common element in the universe, and it’s also the lightest. This means that if there is a leak in a storage tank, the hydrogen rises and diffuses quickly into non-flammable

Today there are several hydrogens powered cars and busses in the world. Those vehicles, thanks to their zero emission, are a step towards the environment melioration, a positive trait nullified woefully by the actuality of not being cost efficient yet.

Honda has already produced a hydrogen fuel cell concept car they claim is “overall 64% energy efficient”. To put this into perspective in the average gasoline combustion engine “only about 20 percent of the thermal-energy content of the gasoline is converted into mechanical work”, making it 20% energy efficient [5]. This new line of cars could bring about jobs in the automotive industry and all industries that branch from it. As of right now the commercial market for hydrogen gas produced from the use of fossil fuels is at about $100 billion. A majority of this hydrogen goes into producing fertilizers and petrochemicals [1]. All it would take is an inexpensive source of green hydrogen, such as the one recently discovered, to completely change this industry.Overall hydrogen has the ability to bring about jobs and continued advancements in every market and industry touched by it. This could be just about every industry when considering how important transportation and shipping are to the economy; hydrogen would give them an inexpensive fuel for transport. Hydrogen fuel could do this all the while solving our most important problem of finding a renewable energy source.

Recent years have shown an increasingly large need for a practical renewable energy source for such reasons as diminishing fossil fuels and increases in greenhouse gasses. Hydrogen appears to be a way out of this gasoline-dug hole, or at least, a way out in the future. Hydrogen fuel cell cars are being engineered as we speak as the technologies to refuel them cleanly are being proposed. Unfortunately, most of the technologies associated with hydrogen are still in the prototype/pre-production stages and require better enhancements before becoming mainstream. This paper assesses the practicality of hydrogen power in cars both now and in the future while explicating the actual process of how a

What exactly are hydrogen fuel cells and why will they be the fuel of the future? Hydrogen fuel cells are a mechanical device that convert the electrochemical energy found in a fuel source, like hydrogen, into electrical energy, with the only byproducts being heat and water (Hoffmann 6). In all fuel cells there are two electrodes, an anode and a cathode, with an electrolyte, a membrane capable of moving ions, in between the two (Sorenson 73). During their operation, hydrogen fuel is injected into the anode side, while oxygen, usually from the air, is pumped to the cathode. The hydrogen molecule disassociates, and the proton passes through the electrolyte to join the oxygen, while the electron from the hydrogen molecule travels in an

For the past three decades Oil dominates the agenda of political discussion. With scares over price volatility, sizes of reserves, international imports and least of which are the environmental impacts due to carbon dioxide and other emissions. Various speculations and educated guesses place our total depletion of crude oil within the next 50 years and there is a general consensus between environmentalists that we steer toward a hydrogen transportation system given the projected work and nonexistent carbon dioxide emissions (Environmental Technologies class lecture, Santa Clara University). However many barriers stand in the way of attaining such a goal, most of which pertaining

In order to understand the why behind the need to change from fossil fuels to hydrogen power, it is necessary to understand what that power is and how it works. Hydrogen is the most abundant and simplest element on earth. It is most commonly found as part of water. In its pure gaseous form it is extremely light, but when ignited in this state releases a large amount of energy in an explosion. In this violent reaction the hydrogen combines with free oxygen molecules in the atmosphere and creates water vapor. This is similar to the way gasoline is combined with air and ignited in an internal combustion engine in the cars used today and like with gasoline, the combustion of hydrogen has risks. In addition to the risk, some of the energy released in the reaction is lost in the form of sound and heat. As an alternative to burning, these same gases can be combined with the use of catalysts to extract the free electrons produced as liquid water is formed(Popovici and Hoble Dorel). Using cables connected to a fuel cell such as this, those electrons go through a circuit, generating electricity. This is more efficient than combustion because less energy is wasted in the form of sound and heat. Going further, greater efficiency for this reaction can be had the lower the temperature it is allowed to take place at, with 83% power at 25◦C(77◦ F)(Popovici and Hoble Dorel). As fuel cells are created with better heat management and