{"id":9158,"date":"2019-01-11T08:10:02","date_gmt":"2019-01-10T22:10:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/?p=9158"},"modified":"2020-06-20T00:18:26","modified_gmt":"2020-06-19T14:18:26","slug":"hydrogen-fuel-cells-the-basic-facts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/automotive-design\/hydrogen-fuel-cells-the-basic-facts\/","title":{"rendered":"Hydrogen Fuel Cells \u2013 The Basic Facts"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the more exciting vehicles that\u2019s scheduled to come to Australia at some unspecified date in 2019 is the Hyundai Nexo \u2013 one of the vehicles recently awarded the Best in Class for all-round safety by Euro NCAP.\u00a0 This vehicle combines regular batteries with hydrogen fuel cell technology. Three vehicles made by major marques have been designed to run on HFCs: the aforementioned Hyundai <\/a>Nexo, the Toyota\u00a0<\/a>\u00a0Mirai and the Honda <\/a>\u00a0Clarity.<\/p>\n

Hydrogen fuel cell technology is another option for overcoming our addiction to fossil fuels (the other two are biofuels and electricity).\u00a0 But what is hydrogen fuel cell technology and how does it work?\u00a0 Is it really that sustainable and\/or environmentally friendly?\u00a0 Isn\u2019t hydrogen explosive, so will a car running on hydrogen fuel cell technology really be safe?<\/p>\n

OK, let\u2019s start with the basics: how does it work?<\/p>\n

\"\"

Diagram of a hydrogen fuel cell<\/p><\/div>\n

A hydrogen fuel cell (let\u2019s call it an HFC for short) is designed to generate electricity, so a vehicle that\u2019s powered by HFC technology is technically an EV.\u00a0 A chemical reaction takes place in the cell and this gets a current going, thanks to the delicate balance between positive and negative ions (all chemistry is, ultimately, to do with electricity). How is this different from a battery?\u00a0 Well, a battery uses what\u2019s stored inside it but an HFC needs a continual supply of fuel.\u00a0 Think of a battery as being like a lake, whereas the HFC is a stream or a river.\u00a0 The other thing that an HFC needs is something for the hydrogen fuel to react with as it passes through the cell itself, which consists of an anode, cathode and an electrolyte solution \u2013 and I don\u2019t mean a fancy sports drink.\u00a0 One of the things that hydrogen reacts best with and is readily found in the atmosphere is good old oxygen.<\/p>\n

Naturally, there\u2019s always a waste product produced from the reaction that generates the charge. This waste product is dihydrogen monoxide.\u00a0 For those of you who haven\u2019t heard of this, dihydrogen monoxide is a colourless, odourless compound that\u2019s liquid at room temperature.\u00a0 In gas form, dihydrogen monoxide is a well-known and very common greenhouse gas, and it\u2019s quite corrosive to a number of metals (it\u2019s a major component of acid rain).\u00a0 It\u2019s vital to the operation of nuclear-powered submarines and is widely used in industry as a solvent and coolant.\u00a0 Although it has been used as a form of torture, it\u2019s highly addictive to humans and is responsible for hundreds of human deaths globally every year.\u00a0 Prolonged contact with dihydrogen monoxide in solid form causes severe tissue damage.\u00a0 You can find more information about this potentially dangerous substance here*: http:\/\/www.dhmo.org\/facts.html<\/a><\/p>\n

For the less alarmist of us, dihydrogen monoxide is, of course, H2<\/sub>O or good old water, like the stuff I\u2019m sipping on right now on a hot summer day. \u00a0Yes \u2013 that\u2019s the main waste product produced by HFCs, which is why these are a bit of a hot topic in the world of environmental motoring.<\/p>\n

OK, so air goes in one bit of the HFC, hydrogen gas goes in the other, and water and electrical power come out of it.\u00a0 The next question that one has to ask is where the hydrogen fuel comes from (this question always needs to be asked: what\u2019s the source of the fossil fuel substitute?).\u00a0 The cheapest source of hydrogen gas as used on HFCs is natural gas, which is, unfortunately, a fossil fuel.\u00a0 So are some of the other sources of hydrogen gas.\u00a0 However, you can get it out of methane, which is the simplest type of hydrocarbon.\u00a0 Methane can be produced naturally by bacteria that live in the guts of certain animals, especially cows.\u00a0 Not sure how you can catch the methane from burping and farting cows for use in making hydrogen gas for HFCs.\u00a0 And, just in case you\u2019re wondering, some humans (not all!) do produce methane when they fart.\u00a0 It\u2019s down to the particular breed of bacteria in the gut (archaea if you want to be picky \u2013 they\u2019re known as methanogens).\u00a0 They\u2019re as common as muck \u2013 literally.\u00a0 So yes, there\u2019s potential for hydrogen gas to be produced from natural sources \u2013 including from sewage.\u00a0 The other thing is that producing hydrogen gas from methane leaves carbon dioxide behind.\u00a0 But this has way less effect as a greenhouse gas than methane, so that\u2019s a plus.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re currently feeling that HFCs might not be quite as environmentally friendly after all and we all ought to drive straight EVs, then I encourage you to do a thorough investigation of how the electricity used to charge EVs comes from. It\u2019s not always that carbon-neutral either.\u00a0 Heck, even a bicycle isn\u2019t carbon-neutral because when you puff and pant more to push those pedals, you are breathing out more carbon dioxide than normal. \u00a0All in all, HFCs are pretty darn good.\u00a0 The worst thing they chuck out as exhaust is water, and the hydrogen gas needed to power them can come from sustainable sources \u2013 very sustainable if you get it from animal manure and\/or sewage, which also means that poop becomes a resource instead of a problem to get rid of.\u00a0 They\u2019re doing this in Japan \u2013 and they\u2019ve also managed to get the carbon bits of the methane to become calcium carbonate, which sequesters carbon and has all sorts of fun uses from a dietary supplement through to agricultural lime.<\/p>\n

Another plus about HFCs is that they are a lot more efficient than combustion engines.\u00a0 A large chunk of the potential energy going in turns into the electrical energy that you want, which is then turned into kinetic (motion) energy by the motor so your car gets moving (or it turns into some other form, such as light energy for the headlights or sound energy for the stereo system).\u00a0 Some comes out in the form of heat.\u00a0 Combustion engines waste a lot of the potential energy in the form of heat (lots of it!) and noise (ditto).<\/p>\n

The amount of electrical energy produced by a single HFC isn\u2019t going to be very large, so inside any vehicle powered by hydrogen technology, there will be a stack of HFCs, which work together to produce the full amount of oomph you need. The fun part in designing a vehicle that runs on HFC technology involves ensuring that the stack has the oomph needed without being too heavy and working out where to put the tanks of hydrogen gas.\u00a0 However, this isn\u2019t too hard.<\/p>\n

The other problem with manufacturing HFC vehicles is that the catalyst inside the cells is expensive \u2013 platinum is common.\u00a0 This is probably one of the biggest barriers to the spread of the technology, along with the usual issue of nobody buying HFC vehicles because nobody\u2019s got an easy place to get the gas from and nobody\u2019s selling the gas because nobody\u2019s buying HFC cars.\u00a0 They had the same issue with plug-in EVs too, remember, and we all know how that\u2019s changed. \u00a0However, last year, our very own CSIRO came up with some technology to get hydrogen fuel for HFC vehicles out of ammonia and they want to go crazy with this and use it all over the show.\u00a0 This is exciting stuff and probably deserves a post of its very own, so I\u2019ll tell you more about that another day.<\/p>\n

I feel in the need for some 1,3,7-trimethylxanthine theine combined with dihydrogen monoxide in solution with \u03b2-D-galactopyranosyl-(1\u21924)-D-glucose and calcium phosphate, also known as a cup of coffee, so it\u2019s time for me to stop and to wish you safe and happy driving \u2013 hopefully without too much methane inside the cabin of your car on long journeys!<\/p>\n

*Some people in the world have far, far too much time on their hands. http:\/\/credit-n.ru\/offers-zaim\/online-zaym-na-kartu-payps.html<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the more exciting vehicles that\u2019s scheduled to come to Australia at some unspecified date in 2019 is the Hyundai Nexo \u2013 one of the vehicles recently awarded the Best in Class for all-round safety by Euro NCAP.\u00a0 This vehicle combines regular batteries with hydrogen fuel cell technology. Three vehicles made by major marques […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5120],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-automotive-design"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9158"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9158\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11128,"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9158\/revisions\/11128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.privatefleet.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}