Solar Hydrogen Production Techniques ( Me5220 Fall 2014 Term Paper )

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.

In this modern fast paced world that we live in, there are many issues that are looked over, energy is one of these. As a world, we are dependant on dwindling fossil fuel supplies and take for granted electricity, oil, and gas. There are four completely renewable sources of energy around us that should be used and developed, they are: wind, growing plants, flowing water, and the sun. These sources of energy are the ones we should be tapping, because they are reliable and renewable. Harnessing the suns energy is the most certain and ultimate energy source. Looking at a brief history and some facts about solar energy, a glimpse of the future can be seen, a future not dependant on

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

This source mainly concentrates on the use of hydrogen fuel cells as an alternative to the United States dependency on foreign oil. It elaborates on the negatives of our countries reliance upon external sources for the vast majority of our power production needs, and suggests that hydrogen fuel cells are the answer to a sustainable energy future. The author is a writer for CQ Researcher who concentrates on energy, environmental, and defense issues. While the article is mainly geared toward individuals interested in the automotive industry and the applications of hydrogen fuel cells in vehicles, it does an excellent job of contrasting oil based

Proponents of a world-scale hydrogen economy argue that hydrogen can be an environmentally cleaner source of energy to end-users, particularly in transportation applications, without the release of pollutants like particulate matter and carbon dioxide. However hydrogen continues to have technical obstacles associated with it, including storage issues, due to the fact that hydrogen has a high energy density by weight, but has a low energy density by volume when not highly compressed or liquefied.

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.

Hydrogen and fuel cells are not technically renewable energy although they are everywhere and don't cause much pollution. With hydrogen, it can be used as fuel and the only emission is water. By using hydrogen there can be a large reduction in green house gases and air pollution. Plus the hydrogen can be used in the fuels cells to power electric motors or batteries for electricity. If your wondering what fuel cells is, there pretty much batteries, or what you would power an electric car with. The only thing about hydrogen is that it is hard to obtain, or it takes more energy to make it than it gives off. Hydrogen is an element on the periodic table and is in the gas family. Hydrogen’s atomic number is 1and it was discovered by a man by the name of Henry Cavendish in the year of 1766. Hydrogen has no color, taste, and smell, is slightly soluble in water and is highly explosive. Hydrogen can be found anywhere in the universe and is used as the fuel for many solar reactions. The hydrogen that is in our atmosphere has three different isotopes and they are called protium, which has one proton, then deuterium, which has one proton and one neutron. Then the third is tritium, which has one proton and two neutrons. Now if your wondering what protons and neutrons are, then you came to the right place. A proton is sub atomic particle with a positive charge found in the nucleus of an atom. A neutron is a sub atomic particle with a negative

Hydrogen, as an energy source for AFV can be used in the form of either an internal combustion engine or a fuel cell where hydrogen is mixed with oxygen to produce electrical power. Current experimentation, testing and development are in process from all major automotive manufacturers in North America, Europe and Japan. There is no infrastructure for the refueling of hydrogen powered vehicles, nor are any readily available hydrogen powered vehicles being produced for

The research and efforts are under way to build the hydrogen fueling infrastructure and produce hydrogen fuel cell vehicles that are practical for widespread use. Hydrogen, or H2, is produced from domestic resources. Although in its market infancy as a transportation fuel, government and industry are working towards clean, economical, and safe hydrogen production and distribution for use in fuel cell vehicles. Fuel cell vehicles are starting to enter the consumer market in localized regions domestically and around the world. This resource ranges from school buses to military

Scientists have also figured out how to harness solar energy, using electricity from photovoltaic cells to yield hydrogen that can be later used in fuel cells. But hydrogen has failed to catch on as a practical fuel for cars or for power generation in a world designed around liquid fuels.

Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles are an optimal solution to the continuously growing environmental problems of conventional vehicles. The use of hydrogen as a type of fuel can cleanse our atmosphere by only emitting water as a form of tailpipe exhaust, deterring the deterioration of the health of all organisms. And simply with time, knowledge, and a little perseverance, we can all save the world, one vehicle at a

Hyundai has engineered a vehicle that uses hydrogen cells for power. These hydrogen cells create electricity through an “electrochemical reaction with onboard hydrogen and oxygen in the air” (Stoffels). The final product is water that is emitted through the vehicle’s tailpipe. Changing the hydrogen cell takes around ten minutes to complete, and hydrogen fueled vehicles can travel around 300 miles compared to the normal average of 310 gallons per tank of gas(United States Department of

Sustainable hydrogen Energy remains fundamental to economic development and welfare of society. To reach levels similar to those of developed countries being, many countries will need, and try to, increase their energy consumption. In addition, there is still a large number of people (more than a billion, according to estimates from the IEA) without access to advanced forms of energy, and will also contribute to increased overall consumption when achieved, hopefully, this access (Agbossou, et al., 2001).

Two motivators for the use of hydrogen as an energy carrier today are to provide a transition strategy from hydrocarbon fuels to a carbonless society and to enable renewable energy sources. The development of a high efficiency, low emissions Hydrogen Internal Combustion Engine (HICE) will lead to establishing a path for renewable hydrogen based fuel utilization. There is a major controversy between whether to use the HICE or the Gas Engine, as well as why to use each over the other.

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