Goodbye hydrogen cars, the future is nitrogen: This prototype is 700 times more powerful

 

Photo: eldiario24.com

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There’s an up-and-coming player in the renewable fuel scene, and many people may be surprised to learn that it’s nitrogen. The world is united in its focus on finding alternatives to traditional fossil fuels and with so many innovations being developed, we can expect more fresh options to crop up in the foreseeable future, eldiario24.com.

Hydrogen is a current major player, but it has drawbacks

For many people, hydrogen appears to be the fuel of the future. It’s the most abundant substance in the entire galaxy and it doesn’t emit any harmful by-products, only water vapor, so there are no pollution concerns about its use in engines.

One of the problems with hydrogen is how expensive it is to produce. Hydrogen is usually bonded to something else, like oxygen, so splitting the substances and then supercooling hydrogen to convert it into a usable liquid state is a costly process. It’s also complicated to maintain hydrogen at the supercooled temperature until it’s needed.

An example of a well-functioning hydrogen car is the Honda Clarity, which has become popular in the United States and contributed to Shell’s installation of hydrogen pumps at some gas refueling stations.

However, the high price of hydrogen is still prohibitive in a price-driven economy where most people would choose a conventional drive engine because it’s cheaper. Refueling with hydrogen is also less convenient than gasoline or diesel because there aren’t that many hydrogen pumps around.

Nitrogen could blow hydrogen out the water

A company in London is working on an alternative to hydrogen with the development of a nitrogen engine. Nitrogen functions similarly to conventional engines in that a chemical reaction is created that drives the pistons. Between a liquid and gas state, nitrogen expands more than 710 times, making it viable for use in engines as it only needs a delivery system to be effective.

The by-products of using nitrogen as a fuel are also carbon-free: an oxygen-nitrogen mix of air and pure nitrogen. This is positive for the most part as the system operates easier than a hydrogen one and no greenhouse gases are produced.

Another team of researchers at the University of Washington is also looking at the viability of a liquid nitrogen fuel system, so it appears that the technology is not as farfetched as some may believe.

Can hydrogen do harm?

Nitrogen is not ideal as a fuel in the long term as it can cause environmental damage, but only after reaching super high levels over a very long time. It can damage the atmosphere in a similar way to carbon dioxide, and it can also cause explosive growth in rivers and oceans at elevated levels.

The developers at the company working on the nitrogen engine technology, Dearman, are taking this into account by researching how to convert the nitrogen that gets expelled into air rather than pure nitrogen. However, they report that there’s still a lot of work to be done.

What are the chances of seeing nitrogen-powered vehicles on the road?

Nitrogen is relatively easy to store and if done correctly, it will maintain a constant temperature in its liquid state. Unfortunately, specialized storage flasks are costly as they need to accommodate temperatures of -346°F, so this offsets the fact that it’s cheaper than hydrogen in other respects.

Nitrogen also has to be extracted from the air that we breathe and may disrupt the ideal balance, so the idea of production on a major scale has its drawbacks.

The average motorist, however, would be happy about the zero emissions status because it means zero road tax, and this would likely cover the initial increase in fuel price. Cars would also end up being lighter, which means less wear on brakes, disks, and tires.

It’s still up in the air whether we will see nitrogen engines being developed to such a degree that we have nitrogen-powered cars on the road. For now, hydrogen is still the up-and-coming star in the renewable fuel sector, evident from the amount of investment that Renault, for example, is plowing into its Ampere Emblème electric-hydrogen fuel cell hybrid car.