Hydrogen Energy - Research Paper Example

Hydrogen Energy Since few years, renewable energy has become an imperative aspect of transport industry, as more companies are now heading towards energy sources, such as solar, hydrogen, etc for vehicles instead of fossil fuels due to environmental awareness. From such perspective, hydrogen energy has been able to acquire its important status in the industry; however, has been confronting barrier of its storage on-board in the vehicles. This review includes analysis of different studies regarding the same issue of hydrogen storage. In specific, it identified different types of hydrogen tanks, such as hydrogen gas tanks, hydrogen liquid tanks, and hydrogen-absorbing alloy tanks that are facilitating experts in increasing the storage capacity of hydrogen fuel, and subsequently, resolving the issue that has become a barrier in the acceptance of hydrogen fuel vehicles in the market. Introduction Since centuries, mobility has always remained a necessity of humans around the globe, and huge number of advancements has been the outcome of such desire of the humans (Veneri & Corbo, pp. 1955-1961). In this regard, as the global economy is expanding, experts believe that desires of humans regarding mobility will expand subsequently as humans will be craving to travel from one place to another quickly in cost-effective manner. In addition, since few years, one more aspect has become a major part of the human mobility that is environmental friendly along with economical prices (Duffy & Anantachar, pp. 687-694). In the result of such aspect, renewable energies are becoming an essential and imperative component of transport industry that utilizes more than twenty-five percent of the global energy resource. In particular, hydrogen energy has been one of the significant forms of renewable energies that have received noteworthy importance during the last few years. From this perspective, experts (Brown, pp. 381-397) are putting efforts to utilize hydrogen energy as one of the cleanest and cheapest forms of renewable energy, in order to avoid fossil fuels that are causing adverse effects on the globe. However, in midst of such endeavors, analysis of the studies has identified a major problem that relates to the storage of hydrogen on board in the vehicles that has become a crucial issue in the creation of vehicles based on hydrogen fuel cells. Brief analysis has indicated that low-density property of hydrogen gas has been the factor of such a barrier in the development of such vehicles (Duffy & Anantachar, pp. 687-694). Particularly, vehicles of hydrogen fuel cells can only store ten percent of the capacity of gasoline vehicles that indicates the gravity of the problem. In this regard, until now, hydrogen fuel has only been beating gasoline vehicles based on its environmental efficiency, whereas, experts are still endeavoring to take the advantage on storage comparison of hydrogen and gasoline, as it is very important for hydrogen vehicles to increase its capacity of hydrogen storage, in order to acquire a considerable status in the market. In other words, hydrogen storage has now become an essential level to reach, in order to confirm introduction of hydrogen fuel vehicles in the gasoline-dominated society (Duffy & Anantachar, pp. 687-694). In this regard, experts are every other day trying to try a new technique or material to acquire a higher capacity of hydrogen, and thus, different results will be part of this review. Scrutiny of studies related to hydrogen storage has indicated that several data play a crucial role in the development of new designs for the hydrogen storage that are density of the material, conducting capacity of heat, change in the volume, and gravimetric density as well. Analysis of the hydrogen fuel cells (NREL, 2009) has indicated that keeping hydrogen in gaseous state; especially in low pressure is advisable to achieve higher efficiency. However, due to lower capacity of vehicles to store hydrogen in gaseous form, there has been a practice of condensing gas, or converting it into a solid form. Liquid state is possible; however, experts believe that it is not preferable to store hydrogen fuel in liquid form that has been harmful in the case of vehicles. In specific, gaseous form is the only preferable state for hydrogen vehicles, as solid and liquid forms are still going through different scientific experiments. It is an observation that a fused high-pressure tank is currently in utilization in the on-road experiments by the experts due to its uncomplicated infrastructure of the tank, as well as its easy process of charging and discharging. In detail, analysis has identified four specific types of such abovementioned tanks for storing hydrogen. In this regard, ‘carbon composite V3 & V4’ is the most common type of high-pressure tanks for storing hydrogen besides V1 & V2 that is in utilization by CNG vehicles in the market. In this type of tanks, vehicles are able to store approximately twenty-five MPa (Duffy & Anantachar, pp. 687-694). In addition, companies are endeavoring to make it possible to introduce tanks with the capacity of seventy MPa that will be able to store more amount of hydrogen. Still, such high pressures will not double the amount of hydrogen storage, and will only increase the capacity by forty to fifty percent. Analysis of the studies has pointed out that at 20-Kelvin temperature, hydrogen converts into liquid state while acquiring a higher amount of density as compared to its density in the gaseous state. Moreover, experts have noticed that liquid hydrogen has shown huge potential of possibility of greater amount of hydrogen storage on board of the vehicles. Furthermore, companies believe that it will be easier to store huge volume of liquid hydrogen based on the current infrastructure of hydrogen vehicles. In addition, some experiments have indicated higher level of consumption in the case of liquid hydrogen. In specific, tanks of liquid hydrogen consists double walls to keep the temperature ultra low and the utilization of thermal insulation in these liquid tanks results in the minimization of heat conduction, subsequently, results in higher level of consumption. From this review, it seems that liquid hydrogen tanks will be the next stop of experts to acquire the desired level of hydrogen storage, and analysis pointed out that a number of companies are putting efforts to develop and introduce new liquid hydrogen tanks in the market that will have the ability of limiting the evaporation of hydrogen. However, besides liquid hydrogen tanks, review identified another type of hydrogen tanks that is ‘hydrogen-absorbing alloy tanks’, which has the ability of stocking up higher amount of hydrogen as compared with the liquid hydrogen, and in a denser state that will enable the scientists to create a smaller tank, and thus, will be cheaper as well (Hirose & Mori, pp. 4569-4574). On the other hand, such type of tanks indicated lower level of gravimetric density that creates problems during on-road vehicle evaluations. Conclusion In conclusion, the paper included a review of different studies related to hydrogen storage that has become an imperative issue in the transport industry globally. In specific, the review involved discussion on some of the common and popular types of hydrogen tanks that have the ability of storing hydrogen in different forms, and it was an observation that experts are still endeavoring to create hydrogen tanks that will the ability of storing higher amount of hydrogen along with maintaining cost-effectiveness and environmental efficiency. Finally, it is anticipation that the review will be beneficial for students and professionals in better understanding of the topic. Works Cited Brown, Lee F. “"A comparative study of fuels for on-board hydrogen production for fuel-cell-powered automobiles." International Journal of Hydrogen Energy. Volume 26, 2001: pp. 381-397. Duffy, John J., Anantachar, Vinay. “Efficiencies of hydrogen storage systems onboard fuel cell vehicles." Solar Energy. Volume 78, 2005: pp. 687-694. Hirose, K., Mori, D. “"Recent challenges of hydrogen storage technologies for fuel cell vehicles." International Journal of Hydrogen Energy. Volume 34, 2009: pp. 4569-4574. NREL Hydrogen Energy, 2009. Retrieved on December 18, 2009: http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/tech/solarenergy Veneri, F. Migliardini, Corbo, P. “Dynamic behaviour of hydrogen fuel cells for automotive application.” Renewable Energy. Volume 34, 2009: pp. 1955-1961. Read More