In the future, fuel cells could power our cars, with hydrogen replacing the petroleum fuel that is used in most vehicles today. Many vehicle manufacturers are actively researching and developing transportation fuel cell technologies. Stationary fuel cells are the largest, most powerful fuel cells.
The advantages of hydrogen fuel cells as one of the best renewable energy sources are evident, however there are still a number of challenges to overcome to realise the full potential of hydrogen as a key enabler for a future decarbonised energy system;
-Hydrogen Extraction: Where will be the source of hydrohgen.Despite being the most abundant element in the Universe, hydrogen does not exist on its own so needs to be extracted from water via electrolysis or separated from carbon fossil fuels.And current industries do; Methane + Oxygen=Hydrogen +Carbondioxide, which is also an addition to green house effect.
-Storag:Storage and transportation of hydrogen is more complex and being highly flammable makes it more risky
-The need for developing an entirely new infrastructure.Large scale adoption of hydrogen fuel cell technology for automotive applications will require new refueling infrastructure to support it.
-Need for platinum and iridium which are scarce and costly.
Basing on the few above mentioned setbacks, it is un certain to see fuel cell vehicle dominating because the current Automobile companies have shown reluctance on hydrogen technology.
I therefore suggest a "hybrid mode" where all technologies work concurrently. Even electric vehicles alone are not sustainable, they have thier set backs but aleast for them they can dominate according to what we already see in existance.
For short run, hybrid mode transportation will dominate the passenger segment market . in future the technology evolves to use all source (conventional source and unconventional source) in single vehicle
Few drawback for fuel cell like,
1. Hydrogen fuel production and storage.
2. Fuel cell vehicle cost
3. Hydrogen fuel station
If we can solve those type of drawback, then we will replace electric vehicles by fuel cell vehicles.
Only some notes:
- Fuell cells are producing electric energy. The architecture of a car with fuel cell is similar to hybryd cars: the fuel engine and the alternator.
- Fuel cell can work with a wide range of fuels including also biofuels
- the room of efficiency improvement of fuel cells is not limited by themodynamic limits, we can guess in higher efficiency of the system
Yes. Fuel cell will replace the electric vehicle because of limited coal and limited power generation capacity. Fuel cell will become the alternative of these
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Physical Sciences
- Materials Science
- Materials Chemistry
- Polymer Chemistry