What Are Hydrogen Cars?
Cars that utilize hydrogen as their primary fuel are known as Hydrogen cars. Hydrogen is the on-board fuel in the Hydrogen cars. One name for these cars is Green cars, as they are low on pollution and other type of emissions. Although one cannot see any hydrogen car for sale currently but many car manufacturers have started developing and testing them in their labs.
Rising fuel prices combined with the depletion of conventional fossil fuel reserves has triggered a debate for searching our alternate sources of fuel. Although, we might be on the brink of a path breaking technology in the area of our living, with zero energy homes becoming a possibility in the very near future. However, the great crack in the wall is in our transport sector where we are short of any reliable alternative fuel.
With more visible and rising negative impacts of global warming on the mother earth, many problems of different scale have arisen. The pollution is also rising and transportation modes are one of the major contributors to the pollution and global warming phenomena. Hydrogen cars will be the perfect weapon to counter the rising threat to our environment.
There are two types of Hydrogen cars. The first type of hydrogen cars converts the chemical energy of hydrogen to mechanical energy that drives the car. The process of combustion achieves this conversion. These cars are commonly known as hydrogen-fuelled cars. The hydrogen-fuelled cars have traditional internal combustion engine to derive the mechanical energy from hydrogen.
The second type of hydrogen cars is the one that use a hydrogen fuel cell to derive the mechanical energy from the hydrogen. They do not have any traditional internal combustion engine. Both type of hydrogen cars are being developed and tested for future options.
Now the question arises where do we find the hydrogen to fuel our cars and other vehicles. Well the answer is that there is so much water around on our planet and by breaking this water chemically we can generate hydrogen. The process of breaking the water is known as electrolysis. However, currently it is the most inefficient way available for obtaining hydrogen fuel but the scientists are betting high on it and expect major improvisations.
Other methods to obtain hydrogen fuel are biomass gasification and coal gasification. These processes utilize coal, natural gas, biomass and other biological waste to chemically catalyze them and obtain hydrogen. With the war for developing futuristic and eco-friendly cars gaining steam automobile companies world over are geared up for the challenge.
Even the governments, environmental agencies and regulatory bodies are laying the plans and necessary funding for the research and development of the hydrogen cars and other alternate fuel options. People are also concerned over the safety of the cars with hydrogen tanks. The known fact is that hydrogen is an explosive fuel and in the wake of an accident, it can be too dangerous. The engineers are also working on this aspect and have achieved significant success in this area.
Surely, hydrogen cars hold the future of this transport sector.