Hydrogen Fuel
Hydrogen fuel has been around for many years. Swiss engineer Francois
Isaac de Rivaz designed the first internal combustion engine inside
a car in 1807 and this ran on hydrogen electrolyzed from water.
In 1860, Frenchman Etienne Lenoir developed the Hippomobile, which
also ran on hydrogen created by electrolyzing water.
Hippomobile
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Since 1958, NASA has been using hydrogen as rocket fuel. Aboard
NASA spacecraft hydrogen gas has also been used in fuel cells to
power onboard systems and provide drinking water for the astronauts.
Each space shuttle flight burns 500,000 gallons of liquid hydrogen
fuel.
More recently, NASA has once again been talking about manned moon
mission and even sending men to Mars. In these two missions, hydrogen
fuel will play an important role. In the NASA VASIMR plasma engine,
hydrogen fuel will be used as the main source of energy.
Critics of hydrogen fuel for cars say that it is not a source but
a carrier. In other words, there is very little natural occurring
hydrogen in the world, unlike oil, so H2 has to be created from
some hydrogen rich compound like water or natural gas.
In fact, today, most hydrogen in the U. S. is made by steam reforming
natural gas. Most of this hydrogen is used by the oil companies
to reduce the sulfur content in gasoline and diesel. Food companies
also use hydrogen to hydrogenate meat and other food products.
But, a small portion of the H2 created is used as hydrogen fuel
for cars such as fuel cell vehicles. But, there is another way,
hydrogen fuel can also come into play.
With hydrogen on demand technology, H2 can be created from water
and supplement a gasoline or diesel powered vehicle. Hydrogen helps
fossil fuels to burn more cleanly and completely. By electrolyzing
a small amount of water and injecting it into the vehicle's intake
system, the car or truck's MPG's will increase and tailpipe emissions
will decrease.
Hydrogen fuel can also be created from other H2-rich chemical compounds
such as sodium borohydride (NaBH4) or hydrogen peroxide. The hydrogen
fuel extracted from NaBH4 can then be run through a fuel cell or
internal combustion engine. Hydrogen peroxide is often used in jetpacks
as a fast burning fuel that creates lift without any pollution.
So, you can see that using hydrogen as fuel is not a new phenomenon.
Man has been using hydrogen fuel for over 200 years. And, the future
is quite bright as this non-polluting element, (the most abundant
in the universe) is gaining more interest in the transportation
sector as the world's perfect "future fuel."
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