Author archive
Hydrogen Fuel Cells and How They Work
Hydrogen fuel cells are the new player in the area of alternative fuel and sustainable motoring. At the time of writing, there aren’t any production cars fitted with hydrogen fuel cell technology but there are a number of manufacturers that have plans to launch them at some point in the near future; Toyota , Honda and Mercedes are the most talked-about names in this department. All the same, there are a few vehicles already out there that have been rigged out with fuel cell technology, mostly as demo or concept vehicles.
The Toyota FCV concept at the 2013 Tokyo motor show: a fuel cell vehicle that we could see on the roads some day.
This is not to say that fuel cell technology hasn’t been tried and tested. It got its real launch (literally) back in the 1980s when NASA fitted them onto the Space Shuttle and the Apollo projects before that, as their space- and fuel-saving ability were very attractive for outer space missions. In fact, they were invented back in the early 1800s when scientists were starting to tinker around with electricity (cue conspiracy theories now).
OK, so how do hydrogen fuel cells work and how practical are they for the everyday motorist?
In a nutshell, a fuel cell is kind of like a battery. A fuel cell generates electricity, which can be used for whatever you fancy, including getting the engine and the other bits and pieces working inside a car. It generates electricity by the way the chemicals provided by the fuel interact with each other, again similar to what a battery does. However, unlike a battery, it only does this reaction when oxygen is fed to the system, meaning you can switch the process on and off.
A fuel cell consists of three main parts: the anode (the bit where the electrons that create the charge flow out of), the cathode (the bit where the electrons flow to) and an electrolyte for the charge to move through. Fans of sports drinks may recognise the term “electrolyte”. This is because you have dozens of electrochemical connections that are rather similar to a fuel cell in your body’s nervous system (they’re at work while you’re reading this) and an electrolyte is anything that creates positive or negative charge when added to water. There’s usually some way of getting the air to the system to get the reaction started.
A car fitted with hydrogen fuel cell technology is more or less an electric car, although the fuel cell needs to be topped up from time to time with hydrogen. The oxygen is supplied by the air we all breathe, so that’s not a problem.
You may wonder where they hydrogen goes if it needs constantly topping up. Is this creating some sort of exhaust? Technically speaking, it is producing a “waste” product that is a compound consisting of two hydrogen molecules and one oxygen molecule: H2O or good old water.
There are, however, a few downsides to hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. The first one is the lack of bowsers that dispense hydrogen. They do exist in some parts of the US so far, but they are rather rare. This is the biggest problem with the potential uptake of vehicles using this technology. Not only would you have to develop bowsers for dispensing hydrogen gas but you’d also have to find some way of getting the hydrogen gas from where it’s been manufactured to the pump, which would mean a whole new industry (come to think of it, this probably isn’t a bad thing – it’s getting started that’s the problem). This would mean a few logistics and health and safety issues, too: hydrogen is really, really explosive (ever heard of the Hindenburg disaster?).
The problem with setting up a whole new infrastructure for hydrogen technology contrasts with the situation with plug-in electric vehicles. We’ve already got the electrical network in place, so it’s a simple case of putting in a few more places to plug in, plus a few more sources of electricity if needed.
Hydrogen production isn’t an issue, though. At the moment, hydrogen gas is a by-product of quite a few industries, especially those to do with ammonia and methanol – and that’s just a few of them. Often, the process of turning the really nasty carbon monoxide into CO2 (which does have its good side) involves water donating an oxygen molecule to the pollutant CO, leaving hydrogen gas behind. You can also get hydrogen from ordinary water and from sea water (or waste water), so there are a lot of juicy possibilities for the future.
So what should the typical Aussie driver of today think about hydrogen fuel cell vehicles? At the moment, you’d probably do better with an electric or hybrid vehicle, as there aren’t too many places where you can grab hydrogen at this stage. However, when things get off the ground (and I mean “when” rather than “if”), they will be a good way of powering our cars as we go from A to B. I’m looking forward to it!
More information about hydrogen fuel cell technology and progress can be found at the following links:
- http://www.hydrogenaustralia.org/
- http://www.csiro.au/Outcomes/Energy/Gas-Processing-Conversion-Fuel-Future/Project—Hydrogen-and-synthetic-fuel-production.aspx
Happy driving,
Megan
Making Your Own Biodiesel
When I came across an article in a magazine about making your own biodiesel, my first reaction was “Yeah, right – get out of here!” However, as I read on, I discovered that it isn’t too hard to do. It looks to be on about the same level of difficulty as making your own beer, soap, jam or toffee. In fact, I think making homebrewed beer and wine might be harder. So I thought that this was such a handy thing to know about that I just had to find out more and pass the knowledge on.
However, before I get onto the recipe, please bear in mind that: (A) I haven’t tried this myself (yet), (B) you need to be really, really careful with all of the ingredients because a lot of them are very corrosive and (C) don’t put straight home-made biodiesel in your engine but mix it with regular stuff from the pump or the result may do something nasty to bits of your engine. Obviously, you need a diesel-powered vehicle!
Although you could do this project in your kitchen, it’s probably best to do it where you’re not going to be interrupted by cats, dogs or small children, or where idiots are going to mistake your project for something edible. Caustic soda is seriously nasty stuff. However, it is used as a drain cleaner and in that horrible spray used for cleaning inside ovens, so it’s not completely incompatible with kitchens. Gloves are an absolute must and I wouldn’t turn down a mask and goggles if they’re available.
First of all, you need a good source of waste vegetable oil. If you do your own deep frying, save the oil. Otherwise, try cafés, restaurants, tuck shops, canteens and takeaway outlets to see if they’ll give or sell you their waste vegetable oil. If you’re not a heavy user of veggie oil, you could try saving all the little dribbles of oil from your breakfast fried eggs but it’s going to take you ages to build up enough to be useful. Saturated fat doesn’t work too well, so skimming the fat off the soup or seeing what you can do with fat from a roast isn’t a smart idea.
Two fish and one scoop of chips for me, and the leftover oil for my car, thanks.
Ingredients:
- 1 litre of filtered vegetable oil plus 1 mL for titration
- 200 mL of methanol (this is the hardest ingredient to get hold of)
- 10 mL isopropyl alcohol (for titration)
- sodium hydroxide (caustic soda – try a hardware store)
- water (for the titration)
First comes the titration. Mix up the caustic soda: 1 gram to 1 litre of water. To work out how much caustic soda solution you need, put 10 mL of isopropyl alcohol and 1 mL of oil in a beaker. Use an eyedropper to add the caustic soda 1 mL at a time. Check the pH using litmus paper or one of those testers you get at swimming pool supply places after every mL of caustic soda. When the pH gets to between 8 and 9, you’ve hit the right spot. Count the number of mL of caustic soda you used and use the following formula to calculate how much you’ll need to make your biodiesel: number of mL + 3.5 = N. N is the number of grams of caustic soda you’ll need for your batch of oil. Use leftover caustic soda solution for cleaning the drains or making soap (and for goodness sake, label the container with a large warning label!)
Put your vegetable oil into one container and your methanol into another. Put N grams of caustic soda in a dish. Now you’re ready to get started. Make sure that the containers you use are a lot bigger than the amount of oil you’re working with in case things foam up when reacting. In the article I read, the people used 3-litre plastic bottles for mixing the oil and caustic soda/methanol solution to avoid problems with fumes, shaking the mixtures gently to stir them. You may or may not need to warm the oil gently – some of the many websites about making biodiesel say you do need to but others don’t.
Step 1 is to stir the caustic soda into the methanol. Stir well but don’t breathe the fumes in. Don’t touch the container, either, as this reaction gives off heat.
Step 2 is to carefully add the oil to the soda/methanol mixture. Stir well again. Be prepared for the mixture to react. (My eyebrows went up when I read this instruction – all the soapmaking recipes I’ve read, which also involve caustic soda and fat, tell you to add the caustic soda solution to the oil).
In Step 3, you leave the mixture to settle. Leaving it overnight is best. When you come back the next morning, you’ll find a layer of glycerine down the bottom and the biodiesel up the top. The longer you leave it, the better.
Step 4 is the tricky bit: separating the glycerine from the biodiesel. Let the glycerine dry out a bit and use it for soap. The biodiesel goes into your fuel tank.
If you use too much caustic soda, you’ll end up with soap, which isn’t a total disaster!
If you try this, let us know how you get on.
Happy driving,
Megan
The Latest Crop Of Record Breakers
I came across a copy of the 2015 Guinness Book of Records in the library the other day. 2015. Either Guinness Publishing uses a peculiar sort of calendar or my local library has a time machine sitting out the back somewhere. Alternatively, the concept of L-space that interconnects all libraries and bookshops throughout time and space from Terry Pratchett’s Discworld is true. But anyway, these official record books often have some fun automotive, transport and car-related records, so without any further speculations, let’s have a look at some of the latest beauties showcased. Might win you a bet or two at the pub.
Country producing the largest number of cars in one year: China. No surprises here, really. The majority of cars are made in this country now, even marques you usually think of as being European. However, the European car manufacturing industry is far from dead: Germany holds the Number 3 spot behind Japan.
Red Cherys ripe for the picking, fresh off the factory floor.
Largest producer of vehicles: Toyota managed to break General Motors’ 77-year run back in 2008 and the two companies have been fighting it out for top spot ever since. Toyota is the current record holder… at least according to the official book.
Tightest parallel parking of two cars: Two Chinese drivers parked their cars in a space that was just 42 cm longer than the combined length of their cars. The make and model of the cars is unknown, but I’m guessing they were little hatchbacks.
Biggest engine in a current production car: Chrysler’s SRT Viper has a whopping 8.39-litre V10 powerplant. This adds up to 640 horsepower and 600 pound-feet of torque. This vehicle can do the 0–60 mph sprint in less than 3.5 seconds (the official Chrysler website claims “low threes”). It does the reverse (60–0 mph) in 106 feet. Top speed is 206 mph. Translating this into SI units, we get 470.72 kW for the power, 813 Nm for the torque and 331.52 km/h for the top speed. I don’t want to even think about its fuel economy. Let’s just say that it’s not for the frugal driver.
First folding car: The Hiriko Fold, which is a two-seater that folds its chassis so three of them can park in the space needed for a normal four-door saloon. Not in general production yet.
The Honda FCX Clarity – a hydrogen-powered beauty.
First hydrogen powered car: The Honda FCX has the honour of being the first vehicle powered by hydrogen technology, as it came out in 2002. Because of the super-low emissions, hydrogen fuel technology is the newest and sexiest kid on the sustainable motoring block. This Honda is in production somewhere in the world, but both Honda and Toyota are thinking about pumping out a few more.
Average amount of time the typical commuter spends stuck in traffic in a year: 38 hours.
Kilometres put on the clock by all driverless cars combined: 300,000 km. All these have been part of the testing process of the driverless cars being worked on by Google. They haven’t been in any major incidents so far during all this trial period. I still don’t like them. If I’m going to just sit there and do nothing during a commute, I’ll take a bus instead.
Smallest roadworthy car: a homemade job measuring 63.5 cm high, 65.4 cm wide and 1.26 m long. It might be road legal (in the USA, at least) but can barely fit a passenger and is rather short on safety features.
Longest motor racing circuit: The (in)famous Nürburgring.
Fastest drift: A Polish driver in a Toyota GTR 86 managed to drift safely at 217.97 km/h. The car in question had been modified to the eyeballs, so don’t try this at home if you have a Toyota 86.
Happy driving,
Megan
You Are Getting Sleepy… Very, Very Sleepy
It’s about that time of year when a number of states start getting into Daylight Savings mode (New Zealanders did the change last weekend). This peculiar hangover from Victorian England often leads to an increase in traffic accidents as the entire country (minus those sensible, sensible states that don’t bother with the whole palaver) goes through jet lag. Especially the springtime changeover where you have to get up an hour earlier than usual.
There has been some research into how the Daylight Savings changeover affects traffic responses. found that accidents immediately after the springtime shift but accidents drop immediately after the autumn shift when the clocks go back. According to these researchers, it’s the amount of sleep lost or gained that causes the change in patterns. We tend to lose an hour of sleep during the spring shift but we get that precious extra hour to sleep in come autumn. The researchers concluded that it’s fatigue and lack of sleep that causes the problem, not merely shifting our body clocks.
It’s not that people are falling asleep at the wheel, either. Analysts and experts have commented that driving tired is as bad as driving drunk or under the influence of drugs when it comes to slowing your reaction times and preventing you from concentrating. Unfortunately, the cops can’t do random breath testing to see how tired you are. Or perhaps fortunately – most of us don’t get the right amount of sleep.
Some car manufacturers are cottoning onto the role of fatigue in traffic safety. Some of the latest models of Mercedes are able to tell by your driving style that you are getting a bit tired and will start alerting you. This is all very well when it comes to getting tired during a long interstate drive when the white lines flickering through the darkness in a steady rhythm on a long straight road have their hypnotic effect on you, gradually lulling you into la-la land until the car bleeps at you suddenly. However, it’s not so good for those times when you lose concentration for half a second at the traffic lights or at an intersection… although a lot of modern cars have fancy crash sensors that will detect this sort of low-speed problem and try to deal with it.
So what can we all do to improve our driving and reduce fatigue-related accidents? We can’t all shift to Queensland or Western Australia where they don’t do the Daylight Savings thing. And even in those states, fatigue-related accidents are still a problem. The answer is not to be found inside our vehicles but inside our bedrooms. If we all got the sleep we needed, we could probably avoid 20–30% of current accidents (according to the Transport Accident Commission ).
- Have a set bedtime routine and stick to it. This programmes your body into knowing that it’s time to go to sleep.
- Avoid “screen time” (TV, DVDs, laptops, smart phones) for half an hour before you plan on nodding off. There’s something about those screens that stop you nodding off.
- Go for calming, soothing activities as part of your wind down. In other words, don’t try doing your tax returns or drafting a letter to your lawyer last thing at night.
- Watch the caffeine. Yes, it helps jolt you up in the morning but it has quite a long half-life in your body, preventing good sleep. It’s best to avoid coffee and other caffeinated drinks after 3:00 p.m. just in case. It’s also unwise to try to use coffee to keep you awake if you are doing a long, late drive. It will work in the short-term, but you end up with a horrible cocktail of fatigue chemicals and adrenaline in your brain at the same time that makes you even more error-prone.
- Save the bedroom for sleep, relaxing and sex. This means that having the home office in there permanently is a bad idea.
Safe and happy driving,
Megan
Level 2, 9 Help Street