Posted on 01/22/2004 6:32:57 AM PST by BallandPowder
ANNISTON, Ala. — Imagine a fuel as cheap and available as gasoline that could get 150 kilometres to the gallon. If scientists at Auburn University have their way, cars of the near future may get just that — and the technology is already here.
Fuel-cell technology is the future of the automotive industry, and soon could be part of the U.S. Department of Defence's next wave of combat systems.
The cells run on the same thing rockets use — hydrogen. Fuel cell technology takes a regular fuel and pulls off its hydrogen molecules, which are stored as gas. The electrons from the hydrogen then power a battery. The process is chemical, and there is no combustion. The primary byproduct is water.
The process is three times more efficient than regular fuel, and would do for automobiles what power plants do for cities. Instead of powering toaster ovens, the fuel cells would turn a car's wheels.
As a military application, the technology has the potential to save the Department of Defence a considerable amount of money, experts say. Fuel in the military always is at a premium. Defence officials have determined it costs about $40 (U.S.) to move one gallon of diesel fuel from Kuwait to Baghdad.
But with a fuel cell, a truck with a given amount of diesel can run three times the usual distance, delivering more food, more men and more supplies where they are needed.
"That's a tremendous leverage factor," said Bruce Tatarchuk, a professor of chemical engineering and director of the Centre for Microfibrous Materials Manufacturing at Auburn University. He is deeply involved in fuel cell development.
Scientists have known about the advantages of hydrogen fuel since they began using it to power rockets. But super-cooled liquid hydrogen is difficult to store and move.
Thus, converting to widespread use would be expensive and take years, and would require creating an alternative to the world's trillion-dollar infrastructure.
But they realized there is already a lot of hydrogen in hydrocarbon fuel — diesel fuel, jet fuel, gasoline. All they would have to do is invent a process that removes the carbon and sulfur and they could take advantage of the oil industry infrastructure.
And that's exactly what scientists at Auburn University did.
In December, they held a demonstration. They took jet fuel, which is very similar to diesel, and catalytically converted it, separating out the sulfur, carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide, and the fuel cell ran.
The university had been working with Department of Defence officials to procure funding for their research. Those present, including military officials from around the state, were impressed.
"Auburn has what I believe is a doggone unique concept," said General Gerald Watson, who serves in part as a military liaison for the university. Gen. Watson said Auburn is "dialoguing significantly" with the army's tank-automotive and armaments command, which supervises the Anniston Army Depot.
Almost all the depot's work is done on diesel engine systems, which are prime candidates for fuel cell upgrades.
Auburn's demonstration was only a working design, but the day of seeing hydrogen-powered tanks may not be far off. On a technological-readiness scale of one to 10, one being the theory stage and 10 being ready for mass market, the design of the hydrogen-based fuel-cell is at a four or five, Mr. Tatarchuk said.
For widespread military applications, however, a lot of work needs to be done, he said. That work entails re-engineering of the entire military inventory and upgrading the legacy fleet.
"You can't do that overnight," he said.
There are about five kinds of fuel cells. Some are available right now.
For example, the Stryker infantry transports use a hybrid engine that runs on fuel-cell power or combusted fuel. General Dynamics builds the vehicles at the depot. Auburn's hydrogen fuel cell technology has incredible potential, officials said. It could be used to generate electrical power the way coal and other fuels are doing that today.
Eventually, it could find its way into every automobile. It could also mean great things for Alabama, with its booming auto-manufacturing industry, and for Calhoun County, with its depot, Gen. Watson said.
"It shows the relationship, if you will, the partnership that industry and academia and the community has, what we're doing to come together, to pull a program together and to create in this community a very efficient military operation down there at the depot," he said.
How fast the technology will get here will depend on how much the national, state and local leadership focus on making research dollars available, he said.
Technology bump! Fuel cells that can catalyse the hydrogen from gasoline!!! Gives us the technology using standard fuel infrastructure!!!!
Two things you never see mentioned in any of these articles: How much does one that could power a car cost and how many miles do you get out of a fuel cell before it has to be overhauled or replaced? Can fuel cells be overhauled cost effectively do you end up with a big box of sludge that costs too much to dispose of?
I can't imagine climbing into a vehicle with a tank of hydrogen on board and taking it onto a battlefield.
Diesel is preffered to gasoline because it is harder to ignite with hostile fire. I can't imagine climbing into a vehicle with a tank of hydrogen on board and taking it onto a battlefield
Read the article, they ARE using diesel, catalyzing it to force off the hydrogen and using it in the fuel cell.
Three times the mileage from the same fuel load.
But...but...why would you?
Hydrocarbon fuels are all pretty similar, except for the size of the molecule - that is, how many carbon atoms in the chain, along with the hydrogen atoms attached to each of them. That generally means 2 hydrogen for each carbon, plus two more hydrogens at each end, leading to a generic formula of H2(CH2)n, with n being from 1 to 8 or so.
This means that the highest proportion of hydrogen is found in methane (CH4), the primary component of natural gas. Ethane (n=2), propane (3), and butane (4) follow, all gases at normal temperatures, although butane and propane can be compressed to a liquid rather easily. A tank rupture near an ignition source would almost certainly result in an explosion.
Heptane (7) and octane (8) are primary components of gasoline, liquid without compression and therefore relatively safer, although lower in relative hydrogen content.
But in ordinary combustion, the carbon in these higher weight molecules actually provides much of the usable energy content, and from 75 (methane gas) to 85 (octane) or greater percent of the weight. Some of the energy in the carbon fraction is used to power the reformation process that extracts the hydrogen fraction of the fuel - the remainder of the carbon energy fraction is wasted.
The fuel cell extracts usable energy from the hydrogen 3 to 5 times more efficiently than a combustion engine, and the electric motor(s) that it powers converts that energy to torque at the wheels 2 to 3 times as efficiently. Hydrogen fuel to wheels compared to gasoline to wheels, perhaps 50% versus 18%. But that does not make up for the inefficiency of the hydrogen reformation, and discarding the carbon fraction. And by the way, all that carbon ends up as the infamous CO2 greenhouse gas.
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