People may one day be drinking water out of their car exhaust
pipes.
A group of UCLA professors demonstrated a new hydrogen fuel cell
car Thursday afternoon by driving it from UCLA to California State
University, Northridge. A presentation was held at CSUN regarding
the vehicle, which the professors view as the future of
transportation.
Showcasing a new DaimlerChrysler F-Cell hydrogen car, chemical
and biomolecular engineering Chair Vasilious Manousiouthakis said
that the only by-product produced by hydrogen-powered cars is water
vapor, which, if unmixed with other impurities, may be clean enough
to drink.
“The water that the car produces is even cleaner than the
water from the tap,” he said.
Hydrogen cars have been limited in attaining popularity due to
production and fuel costs, and research was being done to help make
both the cars and hydrogen cheaper, Manousiouthakis said.
Chemical engineering Professor William Van Vorst said the
vehicle he and his colleagues were riding in amounted to over $1
million once research funding was factored in, but future hydrogen
cars would become rapidly cheaper as production increased.
“It’s a prototype, but all things start out as
prototypes,” he said.
Van Vorst said that as the technology becomes better developed,
more efficient designs may be created, and eventually the hydrogen
car may be affordable to the general public.
Comparing the current situation of hydrogen cars to the history
of computers, Manousiouthakis said that though computers had once
been far too expensive for anyone but corporations to own, they
have now become cheaper, so much so that they are everywhere.
Manousiouthakis and Van Vorst helped form the Hydrogen
Engineering Research Consortium at UCLA, which aims to develop
hydrogen as a common source of energy for a wide range of
products.
Manousiouthakis named HERC after Hercules, the Greek legend who
attempted to cleanse the Stables of Augeas by running a river
through them.
HERC’s goals mirror Hercules’ by using hydrogen
taken from water to help clean the air and environment,
Manousiouthakis said.
The hydrogen fuel cell car runs like a typical compact car, and
the only difference when starting the vehicle is a 20-second wait
as the fuel cell warms up, said Ben Davis, a chemical engineering
graduate student working under Manousiouthakis.
The F-Cell cars do not rely on internal combustion, but instead
use a complicated electrochemical process that takes oxygen and
protonated hydrogen to form the hydrogen and oxygen that results in
water.
Current hydrogen cars can travel upwards of 93 miles, with a top
speed of 87 mph.
The electric motor generates 87 horsepower, allowing the car to
accelerate from zero to 60 mph in 14 seconds.
“There’s still a lot of research that needs to be
done, but the point is that it’s happening,”
Manousiouthakis said.
DaimlerChrysler is developing improved hydrogen cars capable of
nearly double the F-Cell’s current 93-mile range, he
said.
While the technology still has a long way to go, Manousiouthakis
believes the day when hydrogen cars become common is not far off.
With the right development and research, they could be popular
vehicles in 20 years, he said.
“This is not some wild experimental concept,” he
said.