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[-Josh-]

Where's Andy our resident diesel expert when you need him?

[TheStang00]

Originally Posted by Gotian

you want to talk chemistry then lets talk chemistry here, when you cool hydrogen what happens to it? It shrinks, if cooled enough it can be shrunk enough to store into lets say...um...aluminum and fiberglass where it will be kept at a constant -253 degrees below celcius where it will be able to be stored and unaffected by heat so it can avoid combustion in the tank.

It is also known that when Hydrogen is converted from a gas to liquid through condensation it becomes about 840 times larger then its original state allowing for a better supply of hydrogen.

Now as for mixing the hydrogen with another chemical, you cannot. Hydrogen is not a type of chemical that likes to be mixed with others to create a means of fuel, unless you want to run on hydrogen peroxide. The reason why it cannot be mixed is because you dilute its ability to combust properly. When the hydrogen travels to the engine it turns back into the gas state where it ignites and then is controlled by the air mixture. This is the way that it works in the internal cumbustion engines, by mixing with air by the intake system, which in this case the Intake system cools the engine quicker to prevent any unwanted igniting of the gas, once the air mixes with the hydrogen and heat it forms the water vapor that drains out of the exhaust. Also since the hydrogen has a high range of flammability it take little effort to start the ignition proccess and the car starts almost instantly.

Since hydrogen does not have the lubricating properties of gasoline when it mixes with the air, special valve seat rings are used to help this process, this was the same process when we switched to unleaded fuel.


There is so much more that i could say,but i have a report about this that was made in 2001 that if you all are interested you should read.

http://www.eere.energy.gov/hydrogena...fs/fcm03r0.pdf


Here is a Race car that BMW Produced that runs on Hydrogen
http://www.bmwworld.com/hydrogen/h2r_racer.htm

And here is the BMW 750hl that runs on hydrogen, gasoline, and sunlight
http://www.bmwworld.com/models/750hl.htm

you are soooo totally missing the point, and not reading what i said properly.

no shit it gets more dense when it cools, but you still cant store enough of it to be practicle, you would need to refill every 100 miles even with a small engine. that is exactly what the graphs display, look at how much higher the energy density of gasoline is. that is why it is so convenient.

secondly, you dont mix it with other chemicals, you bond it. i think you know that though, just saying... if you read what i wrote you will notice that i said they are looking for a compound with hydrogen that is practicle for storage and can be split easily to then form fuel. notice how i said it needs to be split first. if you didnt look at the graph, you can store a great deal more hydrogen when it is combined in a compound.

if you dont get what im saying, then i really dont know what i can do. just look at the graphs carefully, that should tell you enough. oh yeah, i know all about the bmw race car and what not, it was the opening slide on my power point presentation on the physics of HYDROGEN power.

[Gotian]

Originally Posted by TheStang00

you are soooo totally missing the point, and not reading what i said properly.

no shit it gets more dense when it cools, but you still cant store enough of it to be practicle, you would need to refill every 100 miles even with a small engine. that is exactly what the graphs display, look at how much higher the energy density of gasoline is. that is why it is so convenient.

secondly, you dont mix it with other chemicals, you bond it. i think you know that though, just saying... if you read what i wrote you will notice that i said they are looking for a compound with hydrogen that is practicle for storage and can be split easily to then form fuel. notice how i said it needs to be split first. if you didnt look at the graph, you can store a great deal more hydrogen when it is combined in a compound.

if you dont get what im saying, then i really dont know what i can do. just look at the graphs carefully, that should tell you enough. oh yeah, i know all about the bmw race car and what not, it was the opening slide on my power point presentation on the physics of HYDROGEN power.

how about this, lets just combine our knowledge and efforts and build the engine that can do this and put it in our cars and build it for performance. Then lets mass produce them and solve the problem we have today! Deal? Im sure together we all know enough about it and can find the solution that makes the hydrogen work perfectly.

And so you know i did understand that we would be refilling every 100, to counter that the engines were designed to eventually use less fuel because you can mess with air/fuel ratio a bit more when it comes to hydrogen since it takes little ignition effort (meaning a very little spark) to make the car run effectively. When you were talking about bonding, the BMW750hl does something a bit similar where it uses the sunlight to help power the machine to heat and burn the hydrogen cells effectivly enough to get the most mpg out of each tank. But i think they were also going for performance when they built it because they used a v12 engine in there.

[TheStang00]

ok so you understand what im getting at. so basically what i was saying is that, right now the capital in producing fuel cells is huge, i didnt touch on that much though. and you cant store enough hydrogen on board a normal sized car for it to be practicle for every day use. scientists are trying to figure those two problems out though, and trying to find a suitable compound that can be split easily is one of the more promising ideas.

the issue has nothing to do with the engines themselves because those work. thats not a problem at all. problems are cost and storage.

here is a nice picture of a hydrogen fuel cell and how it works. hydrogen fuel cells are supposed to be about 60% efficient at generating electricity from the reaction, which then drives an electric motor, which are typically about 90% efficient in producing power.


a big problem with fuel cells is that they cost $3000 per kilowatt of power, compaired to about $30 for gasoline. mass production is estimated to bring the cost down to $300, but still 10 times that of gasoline.

[Gotian]

read the report i put up, it shows that it is possible to use the hydrogen fuel cells in an internal combustion engine and doesnt have to be an electric motor. It even shows a 1965 cobra using hydrogen as its fuel source, also make a note of how many air filters it uses, which is what i spoke about earlier.

I'm not disagreeing with anything you said, what i'm saying is that it is possible to use hydrogen by itself efficiently. Although using another compound might be a bit more efficient it will instead raise the cost of the fuel itself and raise the cost of the vehicles because there will need to be more mechanics in the vehicle, where as just making the engine ready to use the hydrogen fuel and adjusting the air to fuel ratio would be easier and cheaper .

[chexmixa]

Here's a thought, why not make what we have now better? are we really at the limit of fuel efficiency and cleanlyness with fossil fuels? Look at what ford is doing with thier Pzev motors.

Honestly i really don't think hydrogen is goin to catch on for a while. Something about keeping a highly combustible gass at a constant -253 celcius (f*cken cold as hell) doesn't sound all that easy. But i do think that hydrogen is going to be our next fuel. Its much better in every aspect for what we will be using it for. I just don't think we are ready, give it some time, let the economy change a lil and then we might be rdy.

As far as running out of gas. Whats up with alaska I know there is a bunch of oil over there. Or the massive amounts of oil off the coast of california? Or all the oil the ruskies got. I can't remeber exactly who, (i think Norway) but one of the NE european contries also have a ton of oil. I really think we will have quite a bit of oil for a while, i just don't think the middle east will have it that much longer. Who really knows though, for all we know they have so much oil left they don't know what to do with it, and are just saying there is a shortage so they can make more money on it.

Just my $.02

[TheStang00]

Originally Posted by Gotian

read the report i put up, it shows that it is possible to use the hydrogen fuel cells in an internal combustion engine and doesnt have to be an electric motor. It even shows a 1965 cobra using hydrogen as its fuel source, also make a note of how many air filters it uses, which is what i spoke about earlier.

I'm not disagreeing with anything you said, what i'm saying is that it is possible to use hydrogen by itself efficiently. Although using another compound might be a bit more efficient it will instead raise the cost of the fuel itself and raise the cost of the vehicles because there will need to be more mechanics in the vehicle, where as just making the engine ready to use the hydrogen fuel and adjusting the air to fuel ratio would be easier and cheaper .

i never said you couldnt use hydrogen in an internal combustion engine, infact i said you could. fuel cells cannot be used in internal combustion energy though because they generate electricity.... actually most of what ive been talking about is about using it in internal combustion engines. hydrogen is actually about 25% more efficient in internal combustion, which would make for more powerful cars also.

the problem now is that hydrogen by itself doesnt last long enough compaired to a gas powered car, you cant travel nearly the same distances. that is why they are looking into another way to store it. you say it might raise the cost of the fuel itself... but it might actually be cheaper, did you know that it is really quite expensive to make pure H2 with the processes that are needed to seperate it? the most cost effective way of making H2 is also self defeating, because they burn fossil fuels to create heat to boil water before they seperate it. there needs to be advancements in making pure H2. if a compound is easy to make, or natural occuring, then it could end up being cheaper. given that they figure a way out to seperate it somehow right before it is injected into the engine... so right now hydrogen is really expensive and not nearly as convenient as gas and that is really what is holding it back. eventually i think that will change though.