Hydrogen-powered car

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33460, 15 February 1974, Page 12

Hydrogen-powered car

British television viewers have been show n a single-seater racing car running on hydrogen gas. but the company which has built the car says use of the gas in passenger cars is still many years away. The car’s 1600c.c. engine has been prepared by Piper F.M. Ltd., a well-known British Ford racing-engine specialist. Built into the car’s chassis are three 1551 b and two small hydrogen cylinders. The gas flows through commercial radiators to a special gas carburettor. The power output of the engine is not spectacular at present: it turns out between 20 and 30 b.h.p. compared with the 86 b.h.p. it produces on petrol. The car has a range of about 12 miles (19 km) on its five cylinders of gas. The racing car being used

for the experiments is an Elden. and the managing director of the Elden company, Mr B. Hampsheir. said that commercial use of hydrogen as a fuel is between five and 10 years away, mainly because of the problems of storing liquid hydrogen. At present, he said, a hydrogen-powered road car that was to have the same range as a petrol car with a 10-gallon fuel tank would need to carry gas tanks weighing a total of about 44001 b (2000 kgs). Mr Hampsheir said that the future of hydrogenpowered vehicles depended on the development of metal hydrides, which are capable of storing up to 600 cu ft of hydrogen gas for every cu ft of hydride. A metal hydride can be likened to a sponge where the gas is concerned, and hydrides are made from extremely expensive metals such as lanthanum and nickel. Mr Hampsheir said although it was obvious that the hydrogen-powered private car was not just around the corner, and was unlikely to appear commercially until oil-based fuels were exhausted, he believed that eventually motorists would be able to fill up with hydrogen at

depots throughout the country.

Using hydrogen would mean that existing engines would not be outdated, although they would need some modification. Pollution problems would be solved because the exhaust emissions would be 99 per cent water vapour. Meanwhile other experimenters are Concentrating on the partial or complete replacement of oil-based car fuels by such things as methanol (wood alcohol) and oil produced by the hydrogenation of coal.

United States scientists believe that wood alcohol suitable for vehicle use could be produced in that country for little as 14c a gallon, using sewage and organic rubbish as the raw material. Cars run well on a mixture of petrol and wood al-cohol-about eight parts of petrol to one of alcohol--and some commercial petrols have contained proportions of alcohol in the past. At present, the cost of wood alcohol in New Zealand is about $1.36 a gallon retail.