Will hydrogen fuel cells prove to be the way forward in car designs?
Investigate Hydrogen Fuel Cell Cars and report on your findings.
the governors of eight states—California, Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island and Vermont—signed a memorandum of understanding committing to having 3.3 million zero-emission vehicles on the roads in their states by 2025. FCEVs are an important part of this portfolio. But as of now, fueling stations are definitely not widespread, so automakers are not likely to pursue hydrogen unless they see more investments in infrastructure.
Benefits of Hydrogen fuel cells are:
1. electrically powered vehicles reduce the emissions of pollutants that degrade local air quality as well as carbon dioxide emissions, which raise significant worries about altering the climate.
2. Another reason to favor electrically powered vehicles involves national security. Ample supplies of petroleum are found only in select regions of the world. So countries that lack these natural resources will remain at a political and economic disadvantage if they continue to utilize vehicles that burn gasoline or diesel fuel.
3. The final reason stems from the fact that exploitable sources of petroleum are slowly running out. Once the society reaches the point where production cannot keep up with demand, prices will skyrocket. So it’s no wonder, really, that the transition to electric vehicles is speeding up.
Problems with Hydrogen Fuel Cell:
1. If you have a hydrogen fuel cell car, where do you get your hydrogen gas?Fuel cells are expensive to build, Platinum is the dominant material used in the catalyst of these fuel cells (the cathode and anode portion of the fuel stack).
2.Platinum: as expensive, if not more expensive, than gold.The DOE tells me that over time, they've been able to reduce the amount of platinum required in fuel cells: "DOE(DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY)-funded research has reduced automotive fuel cell cost to $53/kW projected at 500,000 units/year and $60/kW at 100,000 units/year. This is more than a 50% cost reduction since 2006. Cost reductions reflect numerous individual advances in key areas, including a five-fold reduction in the platinum content of fuel cell catalysts and the development of durable membrane electrode assemblies with low platinum group metal content. The DOE says the durability of fuel cells has also been improving.
3: How do you make the hydrogen?
To get hydrogen gas, you have to make it. Right now, the cheapest way to get the gas is by reformulating natural gas. "So right away, you're using a carbon-based fuel to get the stuff - not ideal. If produced at high-volume, the cost of hydrogen from renewables/ electrolyzers could be around $5/gge even using today’s electrolyzer technology. The cost of hydrogen from renewables will decrease even further using longer-term approaches (e.g., direct solar photo-electro chemical conversion)." We’ve also reduced the cost of producing hydrogen from renewables by decreasing the cost of electrolyzers by 80% since 2002. And even if natural gas remains as the cheapest way to get the gas, the DOE contends that "because a fuel cell is more than twice as efficient as an internal combustion engine, an FCEV travels farther on that tank of hydrogen than a traditional car would on a tank of gasoline."
Honda says it's also looking at purchasing the hydrogen by-product from refineries around the U.S. Another way to get the gas is from the water. Using electrolysis you can capture the gas from water. The question becomes: where do you get your electricity to do this? There's more research being done on how to do this with solar energy.
4.The hydrogen gas tank challenge
To store enough hydrogen on a vehicle to get the 200 to 300-mile ranges we are accustomed to, the gas has to be pressurized. High-pressure tanks that can do the job often end up being quite heavy, which starts to affect the car's fuel economy (the heavier the car, the less efficient it often is).To make a tank that can do the job, carbon fiber is often used, and, once again, we're using an expensive material.
Conclusion:
I believe the future belongs to the hydrogen fuel cell but it will take more time to solve the problems that I have mentioned them in above,human has to and there is not any choice to cut his dependency to oil and gas since they are not there forever and we already have made huge damage to our environment. By getting more knowledge and having advance technology I will see that the future belongs to Hydrogen Fuel cell.
resource:
http://michiganradio.org/post/hydrogen-powered-cars-cant-make-it-without-these-4-miracles
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