Emission Free Cars

Other Unique Engineering Ideas

“.. Our society’s new awareness of pollution results not only from the undeniable growth of the problem, but also from the new availability of information and publicity on the general subject. Furthermore, Americans who are proud of our ability to put men on the moon and isolate the gene find it difficult to understand why our technology and resourcefulness do not provide instant answers to such challenges as restoring purity to our waterways or clarity to our skies .. ” Henry Ford II

1. Description

2. Why

3. How

4. Future Trends

5. Related Links

Description

The day has arrived when road vehicles do not emit harmful pollutants into the atmosphere. The new Fuel Cell Vehicles (FCV,) recently seen in Baltimore, at Maryland Department of the Environment’s (MDE) Headquarters in Montgomery Park Business Center, use hydrogen as fuel instead of gasoline -- and the only emission byproduct is water.

  • There are several designs of the Hydro Gen 3 using either liquid or compressed hydrogen as the fuel source.
  • These vehicles have an approximate driving range of 200 miles with a top cruising speed of 99 mph.
  • Georgia Tech team outlines an economically feasible strategy for processing fossil or synthetic, carbon-containing liquid fuels that allows for the capture and recycling of carbon at the point of emission.
Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have developed a new strategy to capture, store and eventually recycle carbon from vehicles to prevent the pollutant from finding its way from a car tailpipe into the atmosphere.

Why

Technologies to capture carbon dioxide emissions from large-scale sources such as power plants have recently gained some impressive scientific ground, but nearly two-thirds of global carbon emissions are created by much smaller polluters — automobiles, transportation vehicles and distributed industrial power generation applications (e.g., diesel power generators). The Georgia Tech team’s goal is to create a sustainable transportation system that uses a liquid fuel and traps the carbon emission in the vehicle for later processing at a fueling station. The carbon would then be shuttled back to a processing plant where it could be transformed into liquid fuel. Currently, Georgia Tech researchers are developing a fuel processing device to separate the carbon and store it in the vehicle in liquid form.The hydrogen economy presents yet another possible solution to carbon emissions but also yet another roadblock — infrastructure. While liquid-based hydrogen carriers could be conveniently transported and stored using existing fuel infrastructure, the distribution of gaseous hydrogen would require the creation of a new and costly infrastructure of pipelines, tanks and filling stations.

How

”We had to look for a system that never dilutes fuel with air because once the CO2 is diluted, it is not practical to capture it on vehicles or other small systems, so” said David Damm, PhD candidate in the School of Mechanical Engineering, the lead author on the paper and Fedorov’s collaborator on the project.Hydrogen is used to power the vehicle, while the carbon is stored on board the vehicle in a liquid form until it is disposed at a refueling station.It is then transported to a centralized site to be sequestered in a permanent location currently under investigation by scientists, such as geological formations, under the oceans or in solid carbonate form. In the long-term strategy, the carbon dioxide will be recycled forming a closed-loop system, involving synthesis of high energy density liquid fuel suitable for the transportation sector.

  • UK RESEARCHERS are to investigate an auto-ignition combustion engine running on hydrogen,

  • Hydrogen will be combined with homogenous charge compression ignition (HCCI) technology,

  • In which the fuel-air mix is ignited automatically through heat and pressure rather than by a spark.

This could create an emission-free, fuel-efficient engine, according to Dr Pavlos Aleiferis, lecturer in mechanical engineering at University College London.The Georgia Tech team has already created a fuel processor,

  • It is called CO2/H2 Active Membrane Piston (CHAMP) reactor

  • Capable of efficiently producing hydrogen and separating and liquefying CO2 from a liquid hydrocarbon or synthetic fuel used by an internal combustion engine or fuel cell.

  • After the carbon dioxide is separated from the hydrogen,

  • It can then be stored in liquefied state on-board the vehicle.

  • The liquid state provides a much more stable and dense form of carbon, which is easy to store and transport.

Traditional combustion systems, including current gasoline-powered automobiles, have a combustion process that combines fuel and air — leaving the carbon dioxide emissions highly diluted and very difficult to capture. In particular, electric vehicles could be part of a long-term solution to carbon emissions, but the limits of battery technology, including capacity and charging time.

Future Trend

At the current progress rate, some automobile manufacturers believe fuel cell vehicles will be ready for sale to the general public around the year 2020. Now that the Georgia Tech team has come up with a proposed system and device to produce hydrogen and, at the same time, capture carbon emissions, the greatest remaining challenge to a truly carbon-free transportation system will be developing a method for making a synthetic liquid fuel from just CO2 and water using renewable energy sources,The role of possible disruptive technologies in the US automobile sector and the reaction of established firms to that threat. More specifically, US regulators have signalled a shift towards zero emission vehicles; threatening the hegemony of the high emission car built using conventional technology.

Keywords

Pollution-free cars, Fuel Cell Vehicles, Hydro Gen 3, auto-ignition, CHAMP reactor

Related Articles

Related Links