With oil prices due to growing global demand for wide and the phenomenon of peak oil, there is essentially no more capacity to increase oil production above current levels, the race to find a viable alternative fuel source. One of the main candidates is the use of hydrogen for cars and trucks.
The other direct hydrogen combustion
BMW has always been to do things their own way and it is not surprising that hydrogen technology, unlike other manufacturers, BMW has opted for a normal car equipped with a tank containing hydrogen and hydrogen combustion engine instead gasoline. BMW have been testing the system with a series of seven and plans to have models on sale in the not too distant future. However, before this technology becomes mainstream specialist chain of service stations that supply hydrogen for cars would be built.
Hydrogen Fuel Cells
Almost all vehicle manufacturers are only now developing a new generation of vehicles using hydrogen instead of gasoline. These new generation vehicles are electric cars, or trucks, which use fuel cell technology instead of a battery to start the electric motor. Using a chemical process, fuel cells in these electric vehicles convert hydrogen is stored on board, and oxygen obtained directly from the air into electricity to power electric motors. This process is very efficient, much more than any other internal combustion engine. Most if not all of the hydrogen-based fuel cell systems currently under development for vehicles require service stations is adapted to provide hydrogen to fuel cars instead. The hydrogen car to car rolls with General Motors planning to put a fuel cell SUV in the hands of 100 consumers. In London, the first purpose built service station to provide hydrogen for cars was opened in April 2008 and three that opened in 2010.
Hydrogen hybrid conversion kit
So on the basis of the discussion so far does this mean for the hydrogen car the car will have to scrap your current vehicle. Well, help is at hand. It is possible to get the conversion kits that will allow your existing car to run on hydrogen, with the advantage that the kits are easy to install and do not have to rely on specialist service stations that provide hydrogen for cars. The United Nuclear Hydrogen fuel system is a conversion kit that provides hydrogen for the cars, which allows an existing vehicle to run on hydrogen. The kit is an intermediate approach that once installed allows your existing vehicle to run on hydrogen or gasoline. The conversion kit requires modifications to the engine management, electric system, ignition and cooling systems.
The hydrogen is stored in small tanks (tanks of hydrogen) that can be installed in almost any space within a vehicle. Hydrogen itself is generated by an additional system that can be installed in your garage the elimination of any trip to a specialist to provide hydrogen to fill cars. An essential function of this particular final preparation for the solution of hydrogen cars is that hydrogen gas burns much faster than gasoline and therefore with a compression ratio greater than 9.5 to 1 as more likely to suffer damage before detonation (engine knocking). This means that this technology is not applicable to diesel or turbo-charged vehicle technologies we have discussed require storage of hydrogen, either in gas or in liquefied form associated with the inherent technical challenges.
There is another type of technology that uses hydrogen stored in water. This technology is in fact a hybrid technology in which the vehicle still runs on gasoline or diesel, but burns hydrogen. This technology produces hydrogen for cars by electrolysis of water breaks the water molecule in the brown gas. Now the brown gas is a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen and energy is three times more heat than the equivalent volume of hydrogen. One liter of water can actually produce something less than two thousand gallons of brown gas. Kits using brown gas, brown gas supply in the air intake manifold or carburetor vehicles. Because the vehicle is burning an effective vapor fuel gas mixture of brown, these kits are suitable for all vehicles and compression ratios do not seem to be a problem. Since water is the supplementary fuel which hydrogen is extracted no need for hydrogen cars specialist stations.