Quote:
Originally Posted by FNKNSTN
Yes, but it is compressed and liquified just like most any other gas... like Propane, Carbon Dioxide, Nitrogen...
How much pressure does your average Aluminum Propane tank hold?
And there are 20-some Hydrogen refueling stations in California, right?
Yes, Hydrogen is a flammable gas. Learned that one in 9th grade Science and History.
If you had a burning leak, you'd know it... 'cause something else would catch fire or melt... and if you didn't see it, you'd smell whatever is burning.
And they've obviously found a way to contain it, without having the container "decompose"
It's an abundant element... but it always comes attached to another element, like Oxygen - for example.
As I said before its the most abundant element in the universe, but here on earth, natural H2 is rare. Which is why its soooo expensive, because its dangerous, gives your equipment a beating, burns more energy to process than it will yield. And the production cost is more than gasoline.
You mean the steam?
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Who's this smart guy?
If you want to get technical the most practical way to use hydrogen for combustion is in its liquid form. The volumetric energy for H2 in gas state is too low, so you'd have to use a whole hell of a lot of it to get any where. Even in liquid form its energy density is far less than gas
So now lets talk about H2 in liquid state. I don't know what pressure is used but they use a jet engine to pressurize it. It also must be kept at -423.166 F. Even under these (ideal) conditions it still diffuses through any container at 1% a day. Now it will need to be a "direct injection" system or there will be a gas displacement effect that will kill performance. With all this being said what about the beating the fuel delivery system is gonna get. The hydrogen will permeate through all the componets. Some parts will just crack due embrittlement, and parts exposed to high temps may suffer hydrogen attack. And thats when H2 recombines with carbon molecules and make methane molecules that are too big to diffuse through the metal. So they fill the gaps in the structre and get pressurized untill it goes pop...and makes a crack.
Lets talk about H2 fires....yeah OK you can have a secondary fire, most likely class A, or B. You can detect it, and put it out. But the primary H2 fire will keep burning, like I said its invisible and hot as hell. So now you risk severely injuring yourself trying to put out the fire. The only way to see it is with a flame detector, or thermal imager.
And no there is no way to contain it without this happening. The best solution they have for equipment thats constantly exposed to H2 (ie machinery that produces extracts it) is to constantly give it a acid bath, followed by a baking it. untill you have to replace it. Keep in mind these are for componets that aren't kept at a high pressure.
Now there are things that are resistant to all of the crap associated with H2, off the top of my head all I can think of is tungsten.
Sorry MrCool, Im at work and Einstein got me off track
