Monday, December 14, 2009

Running on water? Fuel system experiment comes close

 

Hydrogen injections offer boost in mileage — and opportunity

image

Photo courtesy of Marc Anderson

University of Wisconsin-Madison engineering students install electronics on a Vespa motor scooter that’s partially powered by hydrogen produced from water. The students are refining the system, which the City of Beloit hopes to use in its vehicle fleet.

It might go against the adage "oil and water don't mix," but a University of Wisconsin professor and the City of Beloit's fleet manager are experimenting with technology that allows motor scooters, cars and trucks to use a combination of gasoline and water as fuel.

They're testing a system that uses voltage from a vehicle's battery and alternator to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. Those molecules are then burned as supplemental fuel - reducing the amount of gasoline needed and resulting in a cleaner-running engine.

The system has been used to power a Vespa scooter with distilled water. A hydrogen booster also has been used to reduce gasoline consumption in a Beloit police car, a garbage-collection truck and municipal pickup trucks.

The modified vehicles can get a 20% or better increase in fuel mileage. They also produce fewer greenhouse gases.

"We are getting some positive results. Eventually it would be nice to run a vehicle completely on water," said Dan Lutz, fleet supervisor of Beloit's Department of Public Works.

Lutz and Marc Anderson, a UW-Madison engineering professor, are testing hydrogen-based fuel systems for use in a variety of vehicles.

Anderson's freshman engineering class has been involved in the work that uses distilled water and a device called an electrolyzer to create hydrogen that's fed into the combustion chamber of a vehicle's engine.

"I usually ask my freshmen to do things that they think they are incapable of doing. It's like throwing them into deep water and seeing how well they swim," Anderson said.

In this case, the freshmen are swimming quite well.

They have helped build a fuel cell and coated it with a material that improves its performance and efficiency.

There's a patent pending on the coating through the University of Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation.

The students have worked with Lutz, as well as Anderson, to gain real-world experience.

Lutz has gone to Madison every Wednesday night to help the students develop hydrogen-based technologies.

"We canceled class the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, and several students still came into the lab because they didn't want to miss a week," he said.

Beloit has benefited from the UW-Madison research and more than a year of testing hydrogen boosters - including units it bought from a company that went out of business.

"This technology has a long way to go," Lutz said. "There is equipment you can buy to do this now, but a lot of it doesn't work very well. We have had people come here from as far as Taiwan to see what we are doing."

An old process

The science behind getting hydrogen and oxygen from water, through electrolysis, has been around since the 1800s.

But it's no small feat to develop a system that generates a hydrogen fuel mix from a tank of water aboard a running vehicle.

"We are creating it, on the fly, as the vehicle needs it," Anderson said.

Hydrogen is a more efficient fuel than gasoline, according to scientists.

But getting a source of the gas that can be safely carried on a motor vehicle has been challenging.

It is usually extracted from natural gas, which is not renewable, rather than water.

Ohio University has experimented with extracting hydrogen and nitrogen from ammonia in urine.

But traditional systems for "cracking" ammonia require too much heat, take too long, and don't work if contaminated with impurities, according to a 2006 Department of Energy study.

Distilled water, or plain tap water, might be a better energy source.

Anderson said his electrolyzer could be ready for the marketplace in a couple of years, provided someone spent several million dollars to develop it.

"Frankly, if Wisconsin got behind this, we could convert the old GM plant (in Janesville) into an electrolyzer plant and turn out vehicles that run on water," he said.

The technology could hold more promise than electric cars, which have a shortcoming of batteries that can only store a limited amount of energy.

"It's conceivable that we could get a lot of energy out of water," Anderson said.

Monday, December 7, 2009

Understanding How Hydrogen Powers Vehicles

Cars driven by hydrogen have always captured the attention of the world on account of zero carbon emissions. While supporters of hydrogen-fuelled cars highlight the eco-friendly byproduct released by it and the need to be independent of fossil fuels, the opponents criticize the move of ignoring the greater picture. Evaluating the pros and cons of hydrogen as a fuel is, indeed, more crucial to better understand the concept.

This article aims to highlight the different aspects of hydrogen as an alternative fuel.

understanding how hydrogen powers vehicles

understanding how hydrogen powers vehicles

How does it work?

The conversion of hydrogen to provide torque for a vehicle can be performed in two ways. The first technique employs hydrogen internal combustion engines to burn hydrogen producing heat and water vapor. The burning of hydrogen also generates a small degree of other gases like oxides of nitrogen; but it is the zero carbon emissions that make hydrogen a popular alternative fuel.

Another way of employing hydrogen as a green fuel takes advantage of the fuel cells, wherein hydrogen reacts with oxygen to produce water and electricity, with the electricity forced to power an electric traction motor that powers the engine.

Advantages of hydrogen as a fuel

The advocates of hydrogen-fuelled vehicles throw the limelight on the capacity of hydrogen to provide the energy for powering the vehicle without producing carbon emissions. The byproduct of the reaction, water, can by no means cause harm to the environment.

Another fact that makes hydrogen popular is the abundance of hydrogen in the atmosphere. It can be found in water, fossil fuels, alcohols and many more sources, reducing the chances for its complete depletion. Moreover, as it is freely found in nature. There is no dependence for supplies from other countries as in the case when fossil fuels are absent.

Disadvantages of hydrogen as a fuel

Even though hydrogen is found in abundance, capturing of pure hydrogen is quite difficult. The property of hydrogen to bond easily with other elements makes the task of acquiring it in the pure form an expensive undertaking. For capacity to fuel vehicles, it has to be in its pure form to generate energy. Typically, electrolysis of water and reforming natural gas are the popular ways employed for separating it in its pure form.

Similarly, to power vehicles, hydrogen has to be compressed and stored in cylinders. With cylinders being bulky, many are not interested in this as a form of alternative energy. Moreover, as compressed hydrogen possesses less strength than in its liquid form, which is very expensive to generate, it adds to the disadvantages.

Today many companies like Ford and Renault-Nissan have withdrawn their efforts on developing hydrogen as an alternative fuel. Companies like Daimler and Hyundai, on the other hand, are on their way towards the mass production of FC vehicles that will hit the roads by around 2012.

A successful solution that will be capable of separating hydrogen producing maximum power will indeed be an essential breakthrough that this industry is looking forward to.

Friday, December 4, 2009

Propane powered vehicles produce cleaner air

image

Williamson County will soon ac quire 10 additional propane powered trucks as part of a pilot program aimed at promoting domestically produced, environmentally friendly vehicles. Cedar Park City Councilmember and Ferrell Gas regional manager, Tony Dale, recently gave some local officials including me and others a chance to drive one of the first propane-powered Ford F-250 trucks converted by ROUSH Performance. Jack Roush and Roush Racing have claimed championships in the Nextel Cup and other races. The company has propane conversion packages for a variety of vehicles. More info on ROUSH can be found at http://www.roushperformance.com

According to the Ferrell Gas website, http://www.ferrellgas.com, “Today, propane is the number one alternative fuel for the automotive sector, and it powers more than 8 million vehicles in more than 38 countries. The reason is clear. Propane provides fleet managers with a cost-effective, clean, safe, and reliable alternative fuel. Plus, more than 90 percent of all propane used in the United States is produced domestically, reducing our dependence on foreign fuel.” Furthermore,
• “Propane vehicles have the longest driving range of any alternative fuel – more than 250 percent farther than compressed natural gas, about 60 percent farther than methanol, and 25 percent farther than ethanol.
• Those who drive propane-powered vehicles say that there are no significant driving differences between dedicated propane vehicles and gasoline-powered ones.
• Propane vehicle tanks are constructed from carbon steel under code developed by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) and are 20 times more puncture resistant and can withstand far more pressure than a typical gasoline, methanol, or ethanol tank.”
Plus…in a time where our region is facing possibly reaching non-attainment status from the Environmental Protection Agency, propane usage leads to much cleaner air, according to the company’s website:
• “Propane exhaust creates 60 to 70 percent less smog-producing hydrocarbons than gasoline (Southwest Research Institute).
• Compared to gasoline, propane yields 12 percent less carbon dioxide, about 20 percent less nitrous oxide, and as much as 60 percent less carbon monoxide (World Liquid Propane Gas Association, January 2003; California Energy Commission, January 2003).
• Propane cuts emissions of toxins and carcinogens like benzene and toluene by up to 96 percent compared to gasoline (Southwest Research Institute).
• Propane’s octane rating is 104, while premium grade gasoline’s is only 91 to 92, which allows for a higher compression ratio in the engine and greater engine efficiency. This leads to significant reductions in exhaust emissions like carbon monoxide.
• Propane is listed as an approved alternative fuel in the 1990 Clean Air Act and the Energy Policy Act of 1992. “

The expansion of propane vehicles to the county's fleet is part of a larger effort to improve public health by promote clean air. Williamson County is a part of the regional effort called the Clean Air Force. Commissioner Ron Morrison (R-Round Rock) and Commissioner Valerie Covey (R-Georgetown) serve as the county's representative and alternate on this important collaboration of local government, business, community and other interests. For more information, go tohttp://cleanairforce.org.

AddThis

Bookmark and Share