Have you ever wondered what entities were the most important ingredients for the creation of this universe??.... They were matter & energy. The energy caused matter to reconstruct itself to form what we call the present universe. Energy can be of many types, like heat, electricity, chemical, etc.
But where can we harness this energy from??.... Fuels are substances from which we can extract energy. Even our beloved star, sun uses fuel to power itself. It has immense storage of hydrogen which it uses to produce energy by nuclear fusion. It is said that the sun produces 3.846×1026 W of energy. Now, what if we can use the same hydrogen to produce energy for ourselves??
HYDROGEN AND ITS EXTRACTION
It is very interesting to know that the very first element in the periodic table can produce 286,000 joules/mole of energy. It is observed that the energy produced by burning 3785 gms of petrol is equivalent to that of 920 gms of hydrogen, It is a very light gas, thus it rises above the atmosphere and is not available in pure form.
It needs to be extracted from substances like water.
There are many ways to extract hydrogen - Gasification,
Electrolysis, Fermentation, etc. Now let us see how this gas is used as
fuel currently.
CURRENT SCENARIO
Currently, there are two major technologies where this is used, Internal combustion engines (Chemical to Heat) and Hydrogen fuel cells (Chemical to Electrical). In IC engines the gas is mixed with diesel in appropriate proportion and burned together, this has caused to reduce the emissions and cost of fuel comparatively.
Whereas in the Fuel cells extract the electrical energy produces by oxidizing of the gas. The by-products of this process are water, electricity, and heat. This electricity is then used to drive the motors. Fuel cells are praised for the fact that they produce almost zero emissions.
There are hydrogen filling stations similar to petrol
stations to refuel. It has also been used in space rockets, and the water produced after burning hydrogen is used for drinking.
Storage is the main problem
regarding this fuel. As hydrogen has a low ignition point and is very light, it
has a high chance of leakage. Thus, handling this gas is hazardous.
IS HYDROGEN THE FUTURE FUEL?
While the demand for clean and green energy is increasing, this technology can prove an important player to cater the needs, but if we talk about emissions, currently most of the gas is produces by hydrocarbons in natural gas which causes emissions anyway.
If we
focus on producing Hydrogen in a cleaner way producing the gas by electrolysis
of water (electricity supplied should be from clean source), then we can
eliminate this problem. This is the main drawback for this technology, Tesla
motors CTO Elon Musk has been a long time critic of this for the same reason.
CONCLUSION
Hydrogen as an element has very dense and high-quality energy, it releases enough amount of energy through the fusion reaction to the power of our solar system (sun). It would be of huge benefit for mankind if we can harness this energy, although efforts have been made like fuel cells.
For the time being this alternative fuel is not very reliable and unclean due to its production process.
However, with more research and improvement in clean
ways of extracting the gas and efficient harnessing of energy this can prove a
a promising alternative to conventional fuels with E.V.s.
REFERENCES -
- Energy- https://personal.utdallas.edu/~metin/Merit/MyNotes/energyScience2.pdf
- Hydrogen production - https://aleasoft.com/green-hydrogen-fuel-future/
