Hydrogen Combustion Engine (BMW)

[Anomili]

Hey, Just thought I would expand on something I wrote in the Hybrid challenge thread (http://www.supramania.com/forums/showthread.php?t=793). It is a really interesting topic if anyone needs something to do.

The key to saving the environment and still having any real comparable power is to go with hydrogen combustion engines. Basically you make your engine run off H2 gas mixed with air. It is extremely hard to do many really complex reasons that extend way beyond what I am willing to write right now. But the main reason is that hydrogen gas has a much faster flame rate then standard gasoline. This means that engines backfire almost constantly unless certain precautions are taken. These "precautions" are basically an entire field of research being done all over the world. The select few research groups that have really done their homework have been able to get 120% power (relative to gas) on one of their test cars. The down side to hydrogen gas, besides the massive amounts of engineering required to get proper fueling/containment systems, is that it generally gets used up very quickly. However, as far as performance gas alternatives... BMW recently showed off their prototype that ran a 14.9 second 1/4 mile and a top speed of 185.52 mph.

The BMW car:
http://www.bmwworld.com/hydrogen/h2r_racer.htm
http://www.bmw.com/com/en/index_narrowband.html

 

[figgie]

ther eis a problem with this though. How exactly do you make Hydrogen? You need electrolsis to do that and that requires ALOT of power. Guess where that power comes from... elimate it from cars to produce it else where

 

[Anomili]

Yes exactly, basically you’re creating nuclear powered cars. Nuclear energy creates electricity which is used in electrolysis. And please don't give me the fear of nuclear energy thing... it's completely unwarranted.

 

[figgie]

Yes exactly, basically you’re creating nuclear powered cars. Nuclear energy creates electricity which is used in electrolysis. And please don't give me the fear of nuclear energy thing... it's completely unwarranted.

news flash

less than 5% of the US is ran on Nuclear power. Guess what the other 90% is. I am well aware of Nuclear energy power but I am the minority. Most people hear that and guess what..

"OMG... Teh nos!!!! Teh evil newcleere powah is bad fo uS!!!11 run away!!1"

so again. Where is the power going to come from being that nuclear power is less than 5% of the US power grid???

 

[supra90turbo]

one of the main reasons being that hydrogen is so small. it's only one atom large. so it's tough to contain it for extended periods of time. it finds leaks, and it escapes.

 

[Anomili]

As to nuclear power... Toronto is next door to Darlington, which is a town centered around a nuclear power plant... I guess I assumed that others knew about nuclear power. Also, I would have thought that people had gotten over the whole Chernobyl/three mile island scare. Especially since modern reactors cannot physically undergo the same catastrophe that happened at Chernobyl. In fact 3 Mile Island was a demonstration of how safe nuclear power is. The plant had a failure, but the containment structure held and the radioactive radon gas was emitted without causing any recorded side effects.

As to the size of hydrogen and containment… There are in general 3 tried and tested means of keeping it in one place. 1) Compressed Gas in a bottle: generally disliked because there is not enough space in the bottle to store enough hydrogen for practical use. That and a fender bender could level a city block (exaggeration). 2) Liquid form: Most popular. Generally works and used most by researchers. 3) Hydride: Most Unique/ more popular then compressed hydrogen. A hydride is a metal that absorbs the hydrogen gas and then releases it upon receiving some form of stimulation (don't know much about this form of containment technology.)

 

[Orion ZyGarian]

one of the main reasons being that hydrogen is so small. it's only one atom large. so it's tough to contain it for extended periods of time. it finds leaks, and it escapes.

Yes, but if you knew that much then you also know it exists natrually as H2, not just "H".

If I ever get the funds, I'm going to get either a 7M or a 2JZ converted to a direct hydrogen injection setup. Uber efficient winner!! :icon_bigg

What would be great is if you could get a buttload of low end torque, turbo it, and use most of the energy to turn one or more alternaters, and possibly even recollect the steam and use it again as fuel! How awesome would that be...you'd only have to refill your tank maybe 1nce every 2 monthes!

 

[Anomili]

Yeah I too am really positive on the technology. There are, however, two major drawbacks:
1) Hydrogen has a much higher flame rate then gas, which leads to major backfire as the flame travels back into the intake before the valve closes. (Not that hard to fix, just need better timing.)
2) (Biggest problem) Hydrogen requires a much lower amount of energy to ignite. The problem with this is that the walls of the cylinder have been known to ignite the hydrogen before the intake valve has closed or really at any time before TDC.
This is what research has been working on for a long time. I have only read research up until 1998 so the newest developments are still beyond me.

 

[mdr40z]

Unfortunately I don't think we'll ever see a massive push to convert the archaic internal combustion motor to hydrogen, but fuel cell technology is definately coming into it's own and all it would take is a little kick, ala more government support, to free our dependence on foreign oil and a little less anti-lobbying from oil companies. I can see it now.... introducing the 2018 Toyota twin cell Supra, lol.
Hey if gas prices keep doing this it might happen sooner than later, I think I paid close to $40 last fillup, gag.

http://gadgets.engadget.com/entry/1234000913027221/

http://www.greencarcongress.com/2005/01/las_vegas_lease.html

http://www.popularmechanics.com/automotive/concept_cars/1267891.html

 

[Dirgle]

I was watching a documentary where they took the Exhaust from a bus. Negatively charged the Ions to produce a plasma and one of the byproducts was hydrogen. If the system were equiped on gas powered cars the hydrogen can be injected in to the intake stream for cleaner burning and more power. Pretty cool, here’s an article on it.

http://www.discover.com/issues/mar-04/rd/plasma-bus/

The documentary was on one of the Discovery channels. The info on the plasmatron on cars was in the documentry

 

[Anomili]

There are definitely many alternatives to the gas we use now. My personal favorite (as you may have guessed) is the hydrogen combustion because it saves the environment and still keeps if not increases the power.

 

[oldskool-nick]

There are definitely many alternatives to the gas we use now. My personal favorite (as you may have guessed) is the hydrogen combustion because it saves the environment and still keeps if not increases the power.

-If they can produce it without the use of large amounts of fossil fuels

And

-If they create a covnvenient method of getting it from the pump into cars without any leaks

Then, yes it would be an excellent alternative. But those are two very large obstacles, and I must say that I am a pessimist when it comes to things like this.

 

[Anomili]

Yeah you are very right. There is a town in Germany where researchers have set up robotic fueling stations, but I believe that is for liquid H2. Aka. Welcome to even more energy requirements to synthesize. The greatest obstacle is definitely its practicality. Still, one can dream.

PS. In general I like the idea in terms of a small scale substitute for drag racing and such.
PSS. Forgive any spelling errors, it's 4am.