Conclusion

After exploring my main research question "Is hydrogen a realistic fuel source for the future?" over the duration of the past couple of weeks, I have concluded that, yes, hydrogen is a realistic fuel source for the future.  I believe that hydrogen is a realistic fuel source for the future because of all the research and development that has proven over and over that it is a highly functional technology, capable of being applied in numerous types of applications.  Studying the elaborate history of hydrogen, as well as current technologies, and future predictions, led me to the conclusion that hydrogen is an exciting fuel source that could have a large impact on our lives in the near future and in the far future.

As I continue to research the topic for the final class project of the persuasive argument essay, I hope to learn even more about hydrogen fuels and technology, than I have learned while doing research for the exploratory blog assignment.  I am not sure what my thesis will be for the persuasive argument essay because I still want to do more research on the efficiency of hydrogen fuels vs. other types of fuels, before I formulate my thesis.  I also want to do more research on the environmental effects of hydrogen fuels vs. other types of fuels.  Many people claim that hydrogen fuel systems are cleaner, but I haven’t found the exact data to back up that statement yet.

This bus runs on hydrogen fuel.

I am also interested in some of the other applications of hydrogen, beyond its use as a transportation fuel.  There are ideas about how it could be used in place of natural gas in the large turbines used by power companies.  I’m also interested in some of the more interesting innovations that have occurred recently, or are projected to occur in the future, involving hydrogen in combination with nanotechnology and biotechnology.  It is possible that I will use some of that research in my persuasive argument essay.  As I look toward the argument essay, I’m still thinking about all the topics I haven’t yet covered in my blog entries.  I hope to explore these topics more and use them to compose an exceptional persuasive argument essay.

Hydrogen: Today and Tomorrow

The central question, I have been trying to explore in this blog is, "Is hydrogen a realistic fuel source for the future?"  After examining the history of hydrogen and learning about the invention of the hydrogen fuel cell, I was ready to look to the present.

Some people may not be aware, but engineers have already designed motorized vehicles that run on hydrogen gas.  Some of these vehicles even appear to run on water!  That is because water is inserted into the fuel tank, before it is converted to hydrogen gas, inside of the vehicle.  Can you imagine filling your car up with the garden hose before you went to work in the morning?  Some versions of hydrogen-powered vehicles include this design!  It looks like Jules Verne was right in his prediction, after all.

Here is a video from a company in Osaka, Japan called Genepax, which claims to have designed and built a small hydrogen powered car that uses water as a fuel source.  Does it look too good to be true?  A lot of people think so.  Genepax’s water car is just one of many to receive criticism, or even be labeled as a hoax.  Despite accusations of fraud, many still believe a car that runs on water is possible.

Genepax, a Japanese company, claims that their car uses only water as fuel.  Is this possible?

Why would a car that runs on water be possible?  This is fairly simple to answer.  Water is composed of two hydrogen molecules for every one oxygen molecule.  If there was a way to split the hydrogen from the water, inside of the vehicle, then you would have pure hydrogen gas readily available to power your PEM hydrogen fuel cell.  Thus, you could simply put water into your vehicle’s tank to power it.

Well, it turns out there is a way to split hydrogen from oxygen in water.  It is done through a process called electrolysis.  Electrolysis involves running an electric current through water in order to split the water molecules.  When used in combination with hydrogen fuel cells, it is possible to produce pure hydrogen gas to power PEM fuel cells.  By following this process, using water to power a car would be possible.  Watch the video below to see electrolysis in action:

Why do people claim the water car is impossible?  The reason is because it takes more energy to split the water in order to produce the hydrogen, than a set of fuel cells can produce from the hydrogen produced.  Overall this is what is known as a net loss.  However, this doesn’t entirely confirm the statement that water-powered cars are impossible.  Click the link to see a good article written by a certified auto mechanic about the problem of net loss.

Why are water-powered cars still possible?  Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles using water as a fuel are still possible, however in order to achieve a net gain in energy production, there has to be another energy source on the vehicle, to power the electrolysis process needed to split the hydrogen gas from the water in the fuel tank.  This can be achieved by creating a fuel cell hybrid vehicle that carries batteries in addition to fuel cells.  The batteries would be used to sustain the hydrogen production, while the hydrogen gas powers the car.  Fuel cell hybrid vehicles could realistically run on water, as long as the batteries were charged before operation, using an alternate power source; most likely a wall socket in the average home or garage.

The Honda FCX Clarity runs on compressed hydrogen from specially designed "Fast Fill," stations.  The car is currently only available in Southern California for U.S. customers.  See below.

This is just one type of hydrogen fuel cell vehicle being imagined by engineers, but there are others.  Many, or even most fuel cell vehicle designs propose filling the vehicle with hydrogen before operation, and storing it in the car.  See a U.S. Department of Energy diagram of a compressed hydrogen fuel cell vehicle by clicking here.  In June 2008, Honda took the first step towards creating a massive fleet of this type of vehicle, when it began manufacturing its FCX Clarity model, a car that runs on hydrogen fuel from specially designed “Fast Fill,” hydrogen stations which dispense compressed hydrogen in liquid form, specifically for the Honda model.

In the U.S. the Honda FCX Clarity is only available in Southern California, because it is the only location where the specially designed “Fast Fill,” hydrogen stations have been installed.  However, future designs for re-fuel stations actually involve the novel idea of refilling your hydrogen car at your house.  Imagine refueling your vehicle at home instead of having to go to a gas station!  This innovation could help interested buyers to purchase both the Honda Clarity vehicle and Honda Clarity fuel system in one package.  This system could theoretically be installed almost anywhere in the world.

Here a Honda FCX Clarity fills up with compressed hydrogen at a specially designed "Fast Fill," station.

There was a time when people thought hydrogen fuel cell vehicles would never be mass-produced.  Even a few years ago, Honda engineers thought that it would cost $1 million to produce each vehicle!  However, according to this article from Bloomberg, further research and development reduced that cost $120,000-$140,000 per vehicle, suggesting that if research continues, and costs are further reduced, hydrogen powered vehicles might one day be very common on the road.  Here is a video showing the Honda FCX Clarity in use on the streets of Los Angeles:

As you can see, the idea of hydrogen as a fuel source for the future is very intriguing.  When you consider the idea that hydrogen derived from water could be used as a legitimate fuel for vehicles, it makes you wonder, could the oceans of the world be considered a fuel source?

Could the oceans of the world power our cars?

One of the problems with hydrogen fuel cells, has always been the high cost of manufacturing.  This is partially related to the problem of the platinum coating used in the catalyst system.  Platinum is a rare element, and therefore using it in mass produced technology is expensive.  However, new research offers the opportunity to replace the platinum catalyst with a catalyst comprised of cheaper materials.

Liming Dai researches a new kind of catalyst system that could be used in hydrogen powered fuel cells.

A research team at the University of Dayton, Ohio, led by scientist Liming Dai, has created a special kind of carbon nanotube catalyst system which when combined with a small amount of nitrogen, produces a catalyst that could be used in PEM fuel cell designs, with even greater efficiency than the current platinum coated catalyst system.  Dai's carbon nanotube catalyst would cost less to mass-produce, and is more compact, as well as being more efficient.  This could clear one of the great hurdles to the hydrogen-powered vehicles of the future, the high cost of manufacturing.

Will carbon nanotubes help make fuel cells cheaper and more efficient?

Hydrogen: Moving Into The Present

For the duration of this blog, I have made an attempt to answer the question, “Is hydrogen a realistic fuel source for the future?” In order to answer this question, I began by examining much of the history of hydrogen, and researched the different applications that have occurred involving the substance over the past 350 years.  All of this reading has led me to another important question.  How is hydrogen being used in today’s world?

While some might say that the infamous 1937 crash of the LZ-129 Hindenburg set a bad precedent for hydrogen fuels, it certainly proved one thing.  Hydrogen is a highly energetic element!  While some may think of the Hindenburg crash and say, “Oh my, this Hydrogen gas is too dangerous, we ought not proceed any further!”  Others might wonder, “Look how powerful hydrogen is.  Look what it did to that airship!  How could we harness that power to help the human race?”  Despite the danger, hydrogen’s highly combustible nature is precisely the reason why research concerning hydrogen has continued and has produced positive results.

Another breakthrough in hydrogen fuels occurred in 1955 when Willard Thomas Grubb, a chemist working for General Electric in Schenectady, New York, produced a complex membrane that would become the basis for the fuel cell designs of the 1960's, as well as the fuel cell designs of the future.  Even the fuel cells of 2012, in use today, owe their basic blueprints to Willard Grubb.  Grubb created what was then known as the Proton Exchange Membrane fuel cell, a radical approach to producing electricity using hydrogen gas.  Today the same type of cell is known as the Polymer Electrolyte Membrane fuel cell, or simply the PEM fuel cell.  This membrane, created by Grubb, helped refine the process for capturing energy produced by the interaction of hydrogen gas and oxygen, which is the basic process that powers the PEM fuel cell.

Willard Grubb (right) and Leonard Niedrach (left) work on an early P.E.M. fuel cell.

A few years later, in 1958, another chemist working for General Electric named Leonard Niedrach further improved the design of the PEM fuel cell by adding platinum to Grubb’s membrane, which helped speed up the reaction between hydrogen and oxygen inside the cell.  This technical improvement is known as the platinum catalyst and is still used in current PEM fuel cell designs.  The joint effort between Grubb and Niedrach caused the PEM fuel cell to be known in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s as the Grubb-Niedrach fuel cell.  The design was successful enough to be embraced by the newly formed National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and was later used in several of NASA's Gemini missions.  During this same period, small fuel cell programs were also developed by General Electric for the U.S. Navy’s Bureau of Ships Electronics Division, and the U.S. Army’s Signal Corps.  The Grubb-Niedrach or PEM fuel cell was attractive to both NASA and the U.S. military because of its lightweight and compact design.

The discovery of the hydrogen powered fuel cell is important to answering the central question in this blog: “Is hydrogen a realistic fuel source for the future?”  The PEM fuel cell was the first hydrogen powered energy source that was small enough to be considered useful within the context motorized transportation.  This was a monumental first step toward the later innovation of hydrogen powered vehicles.  However, before we further explore hydrogen powered vehicles, let’s first examine the Polymer Electrolyte Membrane (PEM) fuel cell in greater detail.  How does a PEM fuel cell work?

Here is a P.E.M. fuel cell diagram made by the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

The Polymer Electrolyte Membrane fuel cell creates electricity by combining hydrogen gas with oxygen through a controlled chamber.  This is what is known as an electrochemical process.  The chamber contains two porous electrodes, each coated with a substance acting as a catalyst, and an electrolyte.  The first electrode, called the anode in fuel cells, is the first to receive hydrogen gas when it enters the chamber, and acts as the current collector.  As hydrogen passes through the anode, it is stimulated by the catalyst, which is a fine platinum powder coating, in most designs.  Oxidation occurs within the hydrogen gas in the anode and negatively charged electrons are separated from positively charged ions (protons).  After the separation occurs, the protons move through the electrolyte where they recombine with oxygen after passing through the second electrode, called the cathode.

This is a rare photo of an electron in motion captured by a quantum stroboscope in 2008.

The reason fuel cells produce electricity is because the electrons, once they are split from the hydrogen gas while passing through the anode, cannot pass through the electrolyte.  Instead they are bypassed around the electrolyte using an electrical circuit.  When the electrons move through this circuit, they produce a current which can be harnessed to create electricity.  This is how electricity is generated by the fuel cell.  Click here to see a video animation of this process created by the U.S. Department of Energy.

After observing this complex process, and marveling at the technical innovation, one might wonder, “Why go to all of this trouble?  Why use hydrogen as a fuel source?  Why not just use gasoline or another type of battery system?”  These are good questions, and are important to ask, when trying to determine if hydrogen is a viable fuel source for the future.  To see the answers to these questions, click on the link to my next blog entry, Hydrogen: Today and Tomorrow.

This is a Honda FC Sport.  Do you like the design?  It runs on hydrogen powered P.E.M. fuel cells!

Hydrogen: The 19th and Early 20th Century

My main focus for this blog has been to explore the question: "Is hydrogen a realistic fuel source for the future?"  In order to discover more about the topic, I researched some of the early origins of hydrogen and its early applications.  I was surprised to find that much of the history of hydrogen research occurred several hundred years ago.  This led me to another question, how was hydrogen being used in the 19^th and early 20^th century?

Christian Friedrich Schonbein published  his experiment with electrolysis in 1838.

Much of the lead up to the modern history of fuel cell use occurred in the 1800s.  In 1838, a German scientist named Christian Friedrich Schonbein published some of the work he had been doing documenting the effects of electrolysis on water.  A few years later, Sir William Robert Grove, a Welsh scientist and attorney, using Schonbein’s principles, designed what many consider to be the first fuel cell.  The Grove cell, as it came to be known, used zinc and platinum electrodes submerged in two different kinds of acid solutions to generate electricity.  Grove’s fuel cell served as both an inspiration to future battery system designers, as well as future hydrogen fuel cell designers.  Grove’s cell was so popular at the time of its invention that it became the primary energy source for the American telegraph system from 1840-1860.

The Grove cell was used in the American telegraph system from 1840-1860.

Sir William Robert Grove, Welsh scientist and attorney.

Another landmark event in the history of hydrogen occurred later in the 19^th century.  The author Jules Verne thought enough of hydrogen as a future fuel source to include it in his 1874 novel, “The Mysterious Island.”  In chapter 11, after a meal in the granite house, the journalist Gideon Spilett questions the railroad engineer Cyrus Harding about the future of coal-powered industry:

"And what will they burn instead of coal?"

"Water," replied Harding.

"Water!" cried Pencroft, "water as fuel for steamers and engines! water to heat water!"

"Yes, but water decomposed into its primitive elements," replied Cyrus Harding, "and decomposed doubtless, by electricity, which will then have become a powerful and manageable force,”

(See the bottom 1/3 of the page in the link, if you want to read the full text)

"The Mysterious Island" by Jules Verne, published in 1874 predicts the use of hydrogen fuels.

During the discussion, Harding’s wild proclamation is met with agreement by the other characters Pencroft, Neb, and Herbert, who all seem to agree that water will be the fuel of the future.  To clarify, water is a primary ingredient in the hydrogen fuel cell process since the hydrogen used to produce the electricity is usually derived from water.  By extension, water is considered a fuel source, when using hydrogen fuel cell technology, as predicted by Jules Verne in “The Mysterious Island.” This anachronistic prediction is still used as evidence of the power of hydrogen fuel by proponents of the fuel source, even in the 21^st century.

The LZ-1 takes flight in 1900.

Much more research on hydrogen was done in the latter half of the 19^th century, and at the dawn of the 20^th century, many believed that hydrogen held great promise as a technical wonder of the future.  Among those was the German general and aircraft manufacturer, Ferdinand von Zeppelin who in the year 1900 launched his first hydrogen filled airship, the LZ-1.  A few years later in 1906, Zeppelin proved that airships could be useful for manned flight when he produced the LZ-3.  The LZ-3 traveled 4,398 km over the course of 45 successful flights and was eventually purchased by the German military, where it remained in use until 1913.

Despite the success of some early airships, hydrogen eventually was met with a degree of skepticism as a reliable lightweight gas for inflating airship chambers.  This was mainly due to the fact of its highly combustible nature.  The potential of hydrogen as a fuel source is questioned, to this day, because of one major event, the notorious 1937 Hindenburg disaster.  The LZ-129 Hindenburg was a very large commercial airship, built by the Zeppelin Company of Germany in the early 1930s.  While the LZ-129 successfully completed seven round trips to Rio De Janeiro and ten round trips to New York, it is mostly remembered for its monumental crash at the U.S. Lakehurst Naval Air Station in Manchester Township, New Jersey.

The LZ-129 Hindenburg explodes over U.S. Lakehurst Naval Air Station in New Jersey.

While preparing to land, the LZ-129 Hindenburg mysteriously exploded into a massive ball of fire, the cause of which is still debated today.  While speculative theories range from the possibility of sabotage, to the existence of an unusually flammable kind of paint on the exterior that may have caught on fire, the most widely accepted theory used to explain the explosion is due to the fact that when pure hydrogen gas, in the right proportions, mixes with atmospheric oxygen, it can become combustible.  It is a lesser-known fact however, that many people actually survived the accident.  Only about 1/3 of passengers or crew, on the ground or in the ship, were killed in the explosion.  Despite this fact, even today when engineers debate the use of hydrogen in engineering applications, critics constantly remind them of the Hindenburg crash.

Hydrogen: A Brief History

Is hydrogen a realistic fuel source for the future?  Many people would like to know the answer to this question.  Before we examine this question further, let’s start with one of the more basic questions, such as, how has hydrogen been used in the past?

Robert Boyle, early chemist and author of Boyle's law.

This may surprise some of you, but knowledge of hydrogen has been around for hundreds of years.  An awareness of the element actually predates the modern periodic table of elements, used by most chemistry students today.  One of the men most often credited with discovering hydrogen, was Robert Boyle, an Irish born chemist, and author of Boyle’s Law, who was one of the first to produce hydrogen gas in a laboratory setting.  In 1671, Robert Boyle performed two experiments where he combined iron metal, first with hydrochloric acid, and second with sulfuric acid.  In both experiments he noticed that the combination produced a distinct flammable gas that burned with a pale blue flame.  This mysterious gas was what would be later known as hydrogen.  Read more about the early history of Hydrogen here.

NASA diagram of Boyle's Law.

Hydrogen was further isolated and studied by the British scientist Henry Cavendish, who called this invisible gas of mysterious proportions, “inflammable gas.”  When reacting samples of zinc metal with hydrochloric acid, Cavendish noted that this “inflammable gas,” was 7-11 times lighter than air.  He published this finding in 1766 in his paper entitled “On Factitious Airs.”  Click here to see photos from a rare copy of the original text.  This finding later helped other scientists arrive at the conclusion that this gas was a substance which was distinct from the air around it.  Early chemists did not understand that there are many types of gases, thinking all gases to be similar or the same as the air around them.  Cavendish is often credited with discovering hydrogen, although this fact is at times disputed, since many had stumbled onto the gas before, such as Robert Boyle, and further knowledge and study of the gas occurred by many others at different times.  This is another good site about the early history of hydrogen gas.

Famous drawing of Cavendish.  Nice hat!

Later, in 1783, hydrogen finally received its official name from the French chemist, Antoine Lavoisier, who derived the term from the Greek words of hydro, meaning water, and genes, meaning born of.  Lavoisier included this new gaseous element in his list of elements, which was an early predecessor to the modern periodic table of elements, used by chemists today.  This site shows Lavoisier's "Table of Simple Substances," which includes the newly named "inflammable gas," called hydrogen.

This is a painting of Antoine Lavoisier in his lab.

Around the same time that Antoine Lavoisier was documenting the properties of his newly named hydrogen gas, another curious Frenchman by the name of Jean-Pierre Blanchard also began experimenting with the dynamic substance, in an entirely different manner, however.  While Lavoisier was producing small amounts of hydrogen, rather quietly, in his secluded laboratory, Blanchard was taking the first steps toward manned flight, being the first to fill a balloon with hydrogen gas and use it to make experimental test flights over the farms and meadows of rural France.

Contemporary audiences may think back to the late 1800s or early 20^th century and imagine early blimps and airships, however, Blanchard was already using hydrogen filled balloons to achieve manned flight over the skies of Paris by 1784!  In 1785 he would make history by being the first to make an aerial crossing of the English channel, having been hired to perform the feat by an American doctor, John Jeffries, who accompanied him on the flight.  This site contains a good description of Blanchard's early flight, and stories of other early experimentation.

Jean-Pierre Blanchard's hydrogen balloon uses paddles for steering.

Is Hydrogen The Fuel of the Future?

My main research question is "Is hydrogen a realistic fuel source for the future?"  For those who do not know, the chemical element hydrogen has been used as a fuel source for rockets and space travel, and is most famously known as the fuel used by NASA's space shuttle program during the 1980s and 1990s.  A lesser known use of hydrogen is that it is used to power specially designed fuel cells, that can be used as a substitute for an internal combustion engine when powering numerous types of vehicles, including, but not limited to forklifts, motorcycles, cars, buses, airplanes, ships, and even submarines.

NASA's space shuttle Atlantis in 1985.

With the advent of this great innovation, many questions arise, such as why are we still filling our cars with gasoline?  If hydrogen fuel is theoretically more abundant, cheaper, more efficient, and much cleaner than gasoline, then why isn't it already on the market?  These are some of the questions I would like to research and hopefully answer in my exploratory blog assignment.

This scooter runs on hydrogen.

I suspect that I already know the answers to some of these questions.  There was a lot of hype around the topic of hydrogen in the late 1990s, but then the bubble popped for some reason, and discussion of the fuel source waned.  Then followed a period where people became disillusioned with the technology and it was rarely mentioned.  I would assume this is because it was revealed that hydrogen isn’t as readily available, cheap, efficient, or safe as some people thought it might be.  This is another dilemma I hope to confront in my research, the problem of the many false promises surrounding hydrogen fuel.  Is it a realistic fuel solution or not?  I’ll focus my research efforts mainly using online resources,  including the websites of legitimate news organizations, academic reports, and government websites.  I also have a couple of books at my house that I will use to do research.

The question of hydrogen as a potential fuel source, for the present and for the future, remains a valuable subject of inquiry, as global demand for fossil fuels is outpacing the ability for industries to maintain a reliable supply.  Some scientists wonder if hydrogen could be the next great industrial fuel source that powers the next 100 years of automotive transportation.  This is the subject I will explore in my blog.