A Hydrogen Car - What Is It?
In looking for a hydrogen car, you should know that there are two types of Hydrogen cars available in today's market. Although, neither one is widely available due to the inability to make hydrogen fuel readily accessible.
These two types are hydrogen fuel cars and hydrogen cell cars. They both use hydrogen in order to power the vehicle, but they are essentially two different delivery systems.
A hydrogen car uses hydrogen in much the same way that a regular car uses gasoline to power the engine. You fill the reservoir tank with liquid hydrogen at a filling station, and it is in turn sent into the engine itself, mixing with a set amount of oxygen for the combustion. This technique is used in all manner of vehicles ranging from cars to airplanes and even some buses, in much the same way as natural gas and propane have been used to fuel vehicles.
The other system is the use of a hydrogen fuel cell. This is essentially a cell that breaks down water to create hydrogen with electrical ballast. The fuel cells are rather more convenient to use than the liquid hydrogen vehicles, as you only have to plug them in and fill them with water. These are becoming a bit more popular with the need to find an alternative fuel source since creating liquid hydrogen for non-cell vehicles still requires an amount of fossil based fuels to accomplish.
The down sides to a fuel cell are that you have to constantly keep an electrical charge to the cell in order to create the fuel needed. The disadvantage of the liquid hydrogen system in a hydrogen car is that the size of the fuel tank needed is much greater than a regular gasoline tank. This coupled with the infrequency of filling stations makes a fuel cell that much more desirable than the liquid system. However, there is technology in the works to create a high pressure delivery system that would reduce the amount of liquid hydrogen needed almost in half. This is seen as a giant leap in the right direction over the fuel cell systems
With all of the conflict going on in the world today, and the price of oil rising at such a rate, it looks like the technology for a hydrogen car is right around the corner. Once they get the delivery systems worked out and available, then they can take the time to figure out the refueling of the vehicles, which is one of the major reasons it’s not widely available just yet.
