Hydrogen Group at the Public University of Navarre has received from the hands of a car to modify and work with hydrogen, an inexhaustible fuel that produces no polluting emissions or greenhouse gases.

Three years ago, a renowned German car house donated to the Panel Hydrogen engine of one of their vehicles.

Last February, the engine was already working in the bank college essays, using hydrogen as fuel. Now he goes one step further: “Our aim is to change not only the engine but all components of the vehicle so that it runs on hydrogen and moving independently,” explains project director Peter Dieguez Elizondo, professor of Department of Mechanical Engineering, Energetics and Materials.

In this challenge to make the vehicle run only on hydrogen, “I do not think we have great difficulties in modifying the engine, since we already have experience, which I do believe that we will be more problems in integration, in computer on board, the engine electronic control of hydrogen with the other signals and controls the vehicle. “

In this phase, another novel aspect is that hydrogen production is also performed in the university. “From water and electricity network through an electrolyzer located at the university, we produce the hydrogen consumed by motors.

This represents a lowering of the costs: to get the energy equivalent of a gallon of gasoline it takes between 4 and 5 kWh electricity. While there is a wide range of electric rates in any case the amount of hydrogen equivalent of a gallon of gasoline has an energy cost less than half a euro.

Finally, the research team will have to solve the wearing of hydrogen in the car itself, an aspect that will need to use bottles of hydrogen gas under pressure and change when necessary to recharge the fuel.

Pioneers

This project began in 2005 and in February 2009 achieved the first motor vehicle powered by hydrogen tourism in Spain. Large companies already had hydrogen engines, but in Spain nobody had done. This was a remarkable milestone in the development of technology relating to this gas, with a view to future energy applications.

The Hydrogen Group is directed by Peter Dieguez Elizondo also integrated by engineers Carlos Sopena Serna, Luis Gandia Pascual, Jose Carlos Urroz Unzueta, David Casas Sainz, Susana Berdonces Evora, Carlos Fernandez de las Heras Alminana, Lara and Inigo Calvo Erviti Idareta Erro.

In his seven years of operation has worked a total of twenty people who have created a major knowledge asset in hydrogen technologies.

The hydrogen fueled engine achieved quite remarkable heights in their operation: 5,000 rpm power to reach a speed of 140 mph and zero emissions of greenhouse gases, water vapor being the main component that rises in the tube escape.

Now, the group will work on adapting the vehicle to make it work by burning hydrogen. This gas is called to be one of the stars of the future energy model. It is the most abundant element in the universe, one of the most abundant of nature. Produced with renewable, represents an alternative to fossil fuels, produced from the electrolysis of water using electricity from renewable sources, closes a natural cycle and clean.

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Source:

sinc

Public University of Navarra