How does the BMW Hydrogen 7 work?

Question

I've heard that BWM has a vehicle that runs on liquid hydrogen, but how does it work? How much of gasoline does it use and how much of the power comes from that, and the same for the hydrogen. And then just opinions I guess, what will that do for the global corn market. My family is full of farmers, so will that lower the price of corn and make ethanol obsolete or will other forms be set packing?

Answer 1

The Hydrogen 7 uses BMW's 12 cylinder combustion engine.  It can run on hydrogen or gasoline.  The hydrogen must be supplied as a cryogenic liquid.

The engine is a combustion engine.  When run on gasoline, it has the normal chemical reaction and the normal products of carbon dioxide and water.  When run on hydrogen, it burns the hydrogen with oxygen and produces water.  Both modes of operation also produces nitrogen oxide, but the catalytic converter takes care of most of that.

I wouldn't worry about this car doing anything.  It's basically just for show.  When run in a combustion engine, liquid hydrogen (produced from natural gas) is about 1.5 times more expensive per mile than gasoline ($3.50 per gal), and about twice as polluting. If produced from electricity, it's closer to 3 times more expensive.  And the only reason it compares even that favorably, is because gasoline has tax while hydrogen doesn't.  Just wait until the motor fuels tariff hits the hydrogen.

For now, pretty much everything is safe from the hydrogen monster... unless government really starts burning the money on it.

Answer 2

The motor burns the Hydrogen, the product of the explotion is only energy, the car uses this energy to moves, thats all, the explotion don't produces any reaction.