Thanks to this technological discovery, ultra efficient, hydrogen-fueled vehicles may be appearing on the market soon.
This September, a team of researchers from the Techion Israel Institute for Technology published a paper in the journal Nature where they presented their development of a cheap, clean, safe, and very efficient method of splitting water molecules into oxygen and hydrogen fuel.
The removal of hydrogen from water is the sole environmentally-clean method to make liquid hydrogen- a chemical which is usually expensive and not efficient for production.
However, it can create electricity almost as efficiently as gasoline can.
Most of the hydrogen now is made with fossil fuels that are known to contribute to the release of greenhouse emissions.
Groundbreaking Research: A New, Safe & Clean Way to Make Hydrogen Fuel
A kilogram of hydrogen has as much energy as a gallon of gasoline that can be used as power for heat, by burning it or for electricity, by using it as a cell fuel and pure water is its sole waste product.
The H2Pro system that the team came up with uses the specialized E-TAC tech and divides water 30 percent faster than electrolysis does; however, it doesn’t need rare and expensive earth minerals and it can be produced at a 50 percent lowered cost.
Stealing the Thunder of Hydrogen
Before the revolutionary battery tech by Tesla swiped the markets, hydrogen fuel cells were common in electric cars.
In the last 10 years or so, most of the production of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles happened in Asia.
The 2015 Toyota Mirai was sold in 5300 units worldwide and the Honda Clarity from 2017 with the highest EPA driving range of any other zero-emission vehicle in America.
Could Hydrogen Fuel Cells Come Back into the Limelight?
The team from the Israeli Institute hope to make hydrogen fuel cells the major zero emissions energy source for vehicles with E-TAC.
E-TAC was developed by Dr. Hen Dotan, Professor Avner Rothschild, and Professor Gideon Grader. The research brought $5 million in investments from companies such as Hyundai.
As H2Pro can finish electrolysis faster and it can be manufactured for a lower price, motoring companies may be able to choose it for greater efficiency and higher power in their fuel cell models.
They’ll have reduced production costs as well, something which has been a big problem in the Toyota Mirai. According to estimates, Toyota lost $100,000 on every Mirai that’s been sold.
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