Are Hydrogen Fuel cell cars explosive?

Question

I'm curious, remember the hindenburg

Answer 1

If you mean like the hydrogen bomb, then yes it is!

Answer 2

Hydrogen fuel for a car has to have several things worked out in the real world before it can work into society.

Yes they are explosive anytime there is H2 in the tank.

1. What about the warming of the liquid hydrogen. Refrigerated liquids require insulation and vacuum space to isolate the heat transfer to the liquid from the outside environment to the liquid that causes it the flash off to a gaseous state. Typically these require maintenance and even the design to survive being transported in a moving, bumping vehicle is going to be a challenge.

2. Lets say your Grandmother has her Hydrogen Fuel Vehicle in her garage and she only drives one day a week. Well that Hydrogen is warming at a good rate and the relief valve on the tank will vent to the garage space at some point. Yes the Hydrogen gas is lighter than air but what happens when it fills the garage and she opens the garage with her electrical garage door opener and the whole garage goes up in a blast. You cannot contain liquid hydrogen when it warms up and it is going to warm up. So maybe you

3. Lets say you go on vacation when your car is low on Hydrogen and when you come back all the Hydrogen has vented off safely but your tank is empty. Once the Hydrogen tank has warmed to room temperature the tank will require a whole lot of Hydrogen to cool the inside of the tank (Maybe 2 or 3 to 1). So how are you going to chill off the tank to get enough fuel in the tank to get you down the road? You can’t just take a gas can down and fill it up and then pour it in the cars tank and expect it to add much volume to the empty tank. Maybe you will call AAA and have them send out a 500 liter Liquid Hydrogen Dewar to cool off the tank and fill you tank. So you have wasted maybe 2 or 3 tank loads just to cool the tank. Now that is efficient!

4. Who in there right mind is going to allow an average driver or worse yet a below average driver to work with or fuel a liquid cryogen. It is not something that should be played with even if it is liquid nitrogen which is non-flammable.

I am not saying to give up the efforts to use Hydrogen as a fuel, I am just saying that there are these items I bring to light and many more before H2 will replace gasoline.

Edit: Added comment on what Johnnie B says below.

WHOOOAAAAAA, Johnnie B what are you talking about? I don't know who your science teacher was or who filled you head full of *^^&, you are way off base! Hydrogen gas is clear and it doesn't have Oxygen in it!!! Again, what are you talking about and where did you get this bad information?

Quote From Johnnie B below:

"Hydrogen is the most explosive gas there is. The brown gas is worse as it already has the oxygen in it. There is nothing that will make it safe with the drivers we have."

Answer 3

Yup hydrogen is quite flammable. What's worse, the technology is still kind of c**p. The cars are not ideal for cold weather operation (Yes, hydrogen hates Canada.)  Also refining hydrogen is not an efficient process. The proponents of H fuel cells slam E85 for the lack of infrastructure for distribution, yet there are more changes needed for hydrogen than E85.

A safer and more efficient alternative than hydrogen would be electric vehicles using the lithium titanate batteries from altair nano-tech. Fast recharge with out thermal overload.

Billy 55 hydrogen ignites quite easily. Remember in highschool chemistry doing the expirement with zinc and hydrochloric acid?



Put zinc in a test tube; add hydrochloric acid; put a balloon over the top of the testtube. Notice the bubbling action? See the balloon expanding? That's hydrogen gas. Put a candle near the balloon (it's soo much more dramatic in a darkened room). That flash isn't just the skin of the balloon. Hydrogen is easily combustible. QED

Answer 4

H fueled cars are actually safer than gas cars for many reasons. H doesn't explode, it burns but at a lower temp then gas. In fact, its kinda hard to even get burned by it even if you wanted to because of two things, the low burning temp and that it is the lightest thing known to man so it simply disperses into the air and disappears if leaked. As far as calling it explosive, that's so wrong that I can only describe it as propaganda. You can't even light H with a lighter or match. H gas is very hard to light. Do your research before you speak. Look into it, the hindonberg was on fire because the skin caught fire not the gas inside. The gas made the situation in no way worse and never exploded. Think about the footage, did you see an explosion or did you see a fire on the outside of the airship? That's right, a fire on the outside, not an explosion. Look it up! It actually burned under quite controllable conditions and only because it was coated with a very flammable candle wax like coating did it burn up. Look it up, don't just trust me. Do your own research, don't listen to some uneducated member of some website. Look it up for yourself and live in the light with the rest of us.

Finally to the guy who side every H car is equal to a H-bomb, you're wrong. Flat out propaganda. Look it up. An H bomb is a Hydrogen bomb that can only split atoms when triggered by a regular nuclear bomb. That's right, they are two different things! Look it up and stop trying to scare people with your ignorant propaganda! I learned that in seventh grade! Mustn't have made it that far huh?

Answer 5

Unless they work hard and make it idiot proof, the first fireball in a hydrogen car will hit the headlines, and do to hydrogen vehicles what it did to trsnsatlantic airship flights.

When you look at places like this - it's an accident waiting to happen -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQpdNF0Bd...

Answer 6

hydrogen has an explosive range such that the probability of an explosion with a car having H2 on board is higher than that of a car with gasoline/diesel.

Answer 7

Hydrogen is highly combustable, but can be used under controlled conditions. Hydrogen and oxygen are the main liquid fuels used on the space shuttle and powered the Saturn V moon rockets. So to claim that hydrogen is not easily combustible  really does mean that we didn't put a man on the moon and all shuttle launches are studio staged. There is some Hollywood movie propoganda that oxygen in itself is combustible - it isn't but it combines with the hydrogen to power the main shuttle engines. As for hydrogen not being explosive as with any highly combustable material, if it is stored under pressure and conditions are right, it can become explosive. The Hindenberg didn't explode due to the hydrogen, but I have "exploded" a serious number of tin cans and other engineered bits of metal in small scale rocket engine experiments - so now I make solid fuel engines and small scale gas turbines instead.

Answer 8

Yes.

However, most hydrogen powered vehicles will have a very strong fuel tank to help prevent that. Remember, gas is also explosive (that's how the internal combustion engine gets it's power).

Answer 9

Hydrogen is the most explosive gas there is. The brown gas is worse as it already has the oxygen in it. There is nothing that will make it safe with the drivers we have.

Answer 10

No more so than other types of car.

Hydrogen also has the advantage of being lighter than air so if there is a leak the hydrogen will all go up instead of pooling around the car as propane will do (and the Hindenburg did have quite a bit more hydrogen than any hydrogen powered car will).

Probably the biggest safety issue with hydrogen would be how cold liquid hydrogen is.