Hydrogen Internal Combustion Engines - could the V8 survive?

2b1ask1

2b1ask1

Special case
Messages
20,268
dgmx5 said:
Re hydrogen cars, these already exist in Japan and the Japanese government is pushing this quite hard with its investment in infrastructure. And hydorgen powered buses have been around for some time now.

If there is enough infrastructure to support it, I can see a sportscar manufacturer (either an existing company like AML or Porsche or a newly formed niche company) doing this as it will be a halo car to still have a high cylindered ICE.

Alternatively this may see a cottage industry retrofitting hydrogen fuel cells to classic cars (by which I mean recent cars like an M3, or C63, or Maserati) akin to the current EV transplants of 60s cars or the rather dated LPG conversions of Range Rovers.
Click to expand...

Yes but the point Lord Branford was trying to make is this isn’t fuel cell tech; yes that is efficient but still excruciatingly expensive to implement. What they are doing is a really very basic conversion of an existing ICE but they have overcome the heat and knock problems by leaning it down massively. The smile factor is that they are getting comparable output to diesel. It is not therefore a great leap of faith to think that with further development the sort of petrol performance should be achieved. This then does come into the realms of retrofitting to existing ICE vehicles. I also don’t see why the tanks would need to be any bigger than petrol/diesel tanks or placed in any other location. Let’s face it the automotive industry wouldn’t want people doing this any more than they do EV conversions at the moment.
 
Lozzer

Lozzer

Member
Messages
2,285
2b1ask1 said:
Yes but the point Lord Branford was trying to make is this isn’t fuel cell tech; yes that is efficient but still excruciatingly expensive to implement. What they are doing is a really very basic conversion of an existing ICE but they have overcome the heat and knock problems by leaning it down massively. The smile factor is that they are getting comparable output to diesel. It is not therefore a great leap of faith to think that with further development the sort of petrol performance should be achieved. This then does come into the realms of retrofitting to existing ICE vehicles. I also don’t see why the tanks would need to be any bigger than petrol/diesel tanks or placed in any other location. Let’s face it the automotive industry wouldn’t want people doing this any more than they do EV conversions at the moment.
Click to expand...
True, the hydrogen ICE has been dabbled with for the last 100 years, wonder what the oil companies thought of that at the time? , apart from ****!!, we will be made to adopt whatever attracts the most corporate ££££££££'s, and that's ev' s at the minute, :mad:
 
S

Simon1963

Member
Messages
819
2b1ask1 said:
Yes but the point Lord Branford was trying to make is this isn’t fuel cell tech; yes that is efficient but still excruciatingly expensive to implement. What they are doing is a really very basic conversion of an existing ICE but they have overcome the heat and knock problems by leaning it down massively. The smile factor is that they are getting comparable output to diesel. It is not therefore a great leap of faith to think that with further development the sort of petrol performance should be achieved. This then does come into the realms of retrofitting to existing ICE vehicles. I also don’t see why the tanks would need to be any bigger than petrol/diesel tanks or placed in any other location. Let’s face it the automotive industry wouldn’t want people doing this any more than they do EV conversions at the moment.
Click to expand...
That’s how I understand it from watching Lord Bamford and Harry’s video
 
Zep

Zep

Moderator
Messages
9,257
It has been said here more than once that there isn’t enough electricity to charge all of the potential battery powered cars, and this is a fairly accurate sentiment right now.

Sadly the answer is not using electricity to break down water into hydrogen at 60-80% efficiency and then use it to run a ICE petrol engine at (at best) 50% thermal efficiency. This would mean that, to provide 1kW of motive power using an ICE on hydrogen, you would need 3.3kW of electricity. It is fairly abundant that, with the exception of fairly unique high utilisation applications, running a combustion engine on hydrogen is, eventually, going to be usurped by high conversion efficiency tech like fuel cells.

Regarding the size of tanks, here is a table showing the energy density of petrol compared to other fuels, hydrogen nearly falls of the lower end of the chart.

88159
So at current storage pressures, 10,000psi, you would need a hydrogen tank 90% larger than a petrol tank for the same range. This is probably doable, on a JCB. For a fuel cell at 98% efficiency, the tank would only be twice the size.

Petrol is just too good, great energy density, comparatively simple to store and distribute.

Much as I would love a hydrogen future for ICE and personal transportation, there are a lot of fundamental issues that will render it a niche, rather than a ubiquitous, solution.
 
Zep

Zep

Moderator
Messages
9,257
CatmanV2 said:
I'm reading this as 1.9 vs 2.0x the size of the petrol tank. What am I doing wrong?

C
Click to expand...

Being more optimistic? Depending on the study and the parameter it will vary. There is another FCEV study which says for the same range you will need 3-4 times the tank capacity. So for ICE make that 6-8 times the capacity.
 
CatmanV2

CatmanV2

Member
Messages
48,761
Zep said:
Being more optimistic? Depending on the study and the parameter it will vary. There is another FCEV study which says for the same range you will need 3-4 times the tank capacity. So for ICE make that 6-8 times the capacity.
Click to expand...

No, but a tank 90% larger is surely 1.9x the original tank size?

Twice the size (for fuel cell) is clearly 2.0x the tank size?

C
 
You must log in or register to reply here.