Can sum1 tell me detailed info abt fuel-celled & hybrid cars? Why can't H2O be electrolysed to use h2 in it?

Question

Can sum1 tell me detailed info abt fuel-celled & hybrid cars? Why can't H2O be electrolysed to use h2 in it?

Answer 1

H2O can be electrolysed, but then the H2 fuel cell is only an energy storage system, not an energy generator.

Answer 2

It takes a large amount of electric power to produce much hydrogen.

Answer 3

This is the answer I recently gave to a similar question about fuel cells:

Hydrogen fuelled cars use something called a fuel cell. Fuel cells generate electricity from hydrogen. The electricity generated from the fuel cell is used to power the car. Fuel cells emit pure drinkable water instead of "greenhouse gases" like engines do.

Hydrogen is created using a process called electrolysis. Electrolysis is basically splitting up the water(H2O) into both hydrogen and oxygen by the use of electricity. There are other ways to generate hydrogen, but the extraction from water is the cheapest and most effective way. The use of electricity or heat from nuclear reactors are the most inexpensive and effective ways to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. And during off peak hours, idle nuclear reactors can be generating hydrogen for use in fuel cells inside of cars.

New technology allows hydrogen to be stored safely without the risk of explosion. In many ways, hydrogen is already far less dangerous to store than gasoline.

Another answerer mentioned solar power and wind power. Both are a waste of time. It is impracticle to use either one to power all of the cars in the U.S.. It would take uncountless thousands of wind mills to generate enough electricity to power all of the cars in the U.S.. And solar cells are a waste of time and energy for the generation of hydrogen. Hundreds of square miles of land would have to be covered with solar cells just to generate enough electricity to power the cars for one large state. Also, solar cells would need to be changed after X number of years since solar cells become less and less efficient each year they are used. Another thing, most people fail to know that it requires a lot of energy to just to make solar cells.

Answer 4

Hybrid cars are totally practical, today, using available technology.  It's fairly straightforward for a hobbyist to convert a gasoline car to an electric or hybrid, not so for a fuel cell vehicle.

Fuel cell vehicles are not yet practical, for several reasons.

1. Making hydrogen.  Right now, electrolysis (making hydrogen and oxygen from water and electricity) is practical, but not efficient.

  

2. Storing the hydrogen on the vehicle.  We already have ways to store CNG on a vehicle, and those would work for hydrogen but are very limited... and refueling is hard.  Storage is probably the hardest problem with hydrogen fuels.

3. Using hydrogen to make the car "go".  Fuel cells aren't practical yet.  You can always modify a CNG setup, but then you're burning the hydrogen in a piston engine, which isn't very efficient.

Far, far more efficient and practical are electric vehicles - don't bother electrolysing water, just charge the batteries directly. That's the idea behind electrics and plug-in hybrids.  

I believe fuel cell vehicles will be hybrids.  The battery pack will be used for sprints and hard acceleration, so the fuel cell can be much smaller and cheaper.

Answer 5

For info on fuel-ell go to this web site: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_cell

You need electricity for electrolysis to make Hydrogen from water, so you need fuel to make electricity. Its not economical to produce Hydrogen by this method. On top of that Hydrogen is not stable, it explodes, so its not safe to store it.

For hybrid cars go to this site: http://auto.howstuffworks.com/hybrid-car...

Answer 6

First of all, before you buy a hybrid, consider a sub-compact gasoline powered car.  Yes, the pollution won't come out of your tailpipe, but the batteries being made for the Prius (and pretty much every other hybrid) make it the far worse environmental choice.  Read the message board below and you'll see a survey done on lifetime energy use of the vehicles.

The main point arguing against this message is that:  the Prius is given a 100,000mile lifetime and the SUVs are given a 300,000mile lifetime.  Ok, I'll give you that, but look at the other compact cars--which the Prius is definitely--and you'll see that any "Budget" and even "Economy SUVs" use less energy than if you think you can extend the Prius to 300,000miles without getting other couple sets of batteries that will continue to pump out pollution in Canada that is far worse than CO2, not to mention the trip those batteries have to take around the world.

Answer 7

It takes more energy to produce the hydrogen then you get back.