Hydrogen fuel cell bus develop by KPIT-CSIR in Pune was unveile by Jitendra Singh, Union minister of state for Science and Technology. The hydrogen fuel cell uses hydrogen and air to generate electricity, producing only heat and water in the process.
Hydrogen fuel cells like the 1% in the bus produce electricity by combining hydrogen and oxygen atoms.
The two gases react across an electrochemical cell similar to a conventional battery cell to produce electricity, water and small amounts of heat.
This electricity is then use by electric motors to propel the vehicle forward.
What is a Hydrogen Fuel Cell?
According to the US Department of Energy, fuel cells work in a similar manner to conventional batteries found in electric vehicles but they do not run out of charge and don’t need to be recharge with electricity.
They continue to produce electricity as long as there is a supply of hydrogen.
Just like conventional cells, a fuel cell consists of an anode (negative electrode) and cathode (positive electrode) sandwich around an electrolyte.
Hydrogen is fed to the anode and air is fed to the cathode.
At the anode, a catalyst separates the hydrogen molecules into protons and electrons and both subatomic particles take different paths to the cathode.
The electrons go through an external circuit, creating a flow of electricity that can be use to power electric motors.
The protons move to the cathode through the electrolyte.
They unite with oxygen and electrons to produce water and heat.
Advantage of a Hydrogen Fuel Cell-Powered Vehicle
The primary advantage of hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEV) is that they produce no tailpipe emissions.
They only emit water vapour and warm air.
Another advantage is that they are more efficient than internal combustion engine vehicles.
Hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles have another advantage when it comes to refuelling time, which makes them more practical than battery-power electric vehicles for public transportation purposes.
Even with the fastest charging technologies, it could take hours to charge a battery-power electric bus.
Hydrogen can be refill in a fuel cell vehicle in a matter of minutes, nearly as fast as an internal combustion engine can be refill with fossil fuels.
By this disadvantage may not be a major issue for battery-power personal vehicles, for buses and other public vehicles, it could mean that an important asset is out of use for a large part of the day because it needs to be charge.
Are Hydrogen Fuel Cell Vehicles Environmentally Friendly?
One main point to note is that using a battery-power electric vehicle doesn’t mean that the vehicles produce no emissions, but rather, that they produce no tailpipe emissions.
As a majority of the electricity in the country comes from fossil fuels, and the biggest source of hydrogen in the world currently is also fossil fuels, these vehicles do cause a large number of emissions with their usage.
But just like we are moving towards renewable sources of electricity, we could also move towards renewable methods of generating hydrogen in the future.
So even if these vehicles do contribute to emissions right now, the fuel that they need could be produce using renewable methods such as solar and wind energy.
