Thursday 19 September 2013

Hydrogen Fuel Cells Cars: An Environmental Friendly Driving Solution

If we talk about the strengths of human beings, the first thing that best describe their power is the "imagination". These people have the ability to imagine and invent some brilliant concepts. Some intelligent people believe that if they wish to see something new in this miraculous world, they have to stop doing old things. Such a belief resulted in the introduction of entirely new concept in automobiles, i.e. Hydrogen Cars.

Hydrogen Cars, as their name represents, are the automobiles that use hydrogen as their on-board fuel facilitating enhanced power during the drive. Earlier, hydrogen as a fuel was limited to space rockets, but now scientist and engineers have successfully established this fabulous idea in the automobiles to improve fuel efficiency. These special vehicles are also developed to make the concept of zero emission cars legendary. These remarkable vehicles convert the chemical energy into mechanical energy by burning hydrogen in an engine or reacting hydrogen with oxygen in the fuel cells for the proper working of electric motors.

The idea of Hydrogen based cars is not new, but it first came into existence in the 19th century. This idea did not make many wonders due to some loopholes which the scientists were not able to overcome. Today, few faults have been successfully resolved such as steam is released instead of releasing foul-smelling gases. The present hydrogen based vehicles are more eco-friendly, fuel-efficient and allow green driving as compared to those that were developed earlier. Hydrogen cars work on the fuel cells that are made up of Polymer Exchange Membrane (PEM) that has several other advantages. This type of cells consists of two electrodes, a catalyst, a membrane, a negative and positive charged cathode and anode respectively.

The complete reaction taking place inside the cells undergoes following steps:

1. At the anode, hydrogen is restored inside the fuel cell in the form of its molecules.

2. A catalyst at the anode divides the molecules into the electrons (a flow of electricity) and protons (hydrogen ions).

3. The ions released can move through the membrane, but the electricity has to go around as a result of which it is bound to perform some work.

4. The hydrogen is stressed at the anode, in the same way oxygen is enforced at the cathode.

5. The electrons and protons collaborate at the cathode and link with oxygen to generate water.

There are several benefits associated with the use of fuel cells as compared to fossil based cells. Some of them are:

1. People mainly complain about the by-products (harmful gases) that the fossil fuel cells produce causing harm to the health of human beings. Whereas, hydrogen based cells generate water and heat as the by-products that do not cause any environmental pollution.

2. As no harmful gases are released, these hydrogen cars do not even contribute in global warming and greenhouse effects.

3. These cells also decrease the human dependency on gasoline and petroleum for running their vehicles.

Although it is absolutely true that Hydrogen dependent cars are not very popular, but the day not so far when these vehicles will dominate on the automotive world. Research is still going on reducing the expenses on these vehicles which will certainly decrease their market cost and make them highly affordable.

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