Beyond Hydrogen and EVs

As Japan invests in hydrogen and America in electric vehicles, Sweden decided to take the bull by the horns and shift towards sustainable transportation. That is why today, Volvo Group, a Swedish multinational manufacturing company, demonstrates the path to proactively develop hydrogen-powered solutions to start a new movement, which tested vehicles already on the roads on a commercial level.

This grand vision reflects Sweden’s dense interest in decarbonizing the transport sector and puts the country on the cutting edge of green technology advancement. As Volvo pushes the boundaries of what is possible, Sweden is gaining recognition as a pioneer in environmentally friendly transportation.

How Volvo is revolutionizing transportation by leading the charge in hydrogen fuel cell technology
Thus, not a single segment of the Volvo Group is passive in developing and using hydrogen fuel cell technology. FCEVs store hydrogen gas in tanks and generate electricity through a chemical reaction with oxygen. This operation is fast and clean, except for water vapor, which is the only discharge given out. Some advantages of FCEVs over BEVs are refueling times and a more extended driving range.         READ MORE...

Hydrogen-Electric Hybrid Engine

The future is not hydrogen: This new fuel is 700 times more powerful, but is “burning cold”

This is “the impossible engine”, created centuries after its prediction: Two fused fuels and 900 hp

The Sci-Fi transport everyone was looking for is a reality in the US: this vehicle will take you to your destination in minutes


As the world shifts its focus towards looking for sustainable alternatives in the automotive industry, REVO ZERO, a Northern Virginia-based startup company, has shown the world a car that could revolutionize the zero-emission engine. The new ENERGY The concept car is the SUV type with a fantastic estimated range of 700 miles (1,127 km).

The vehicle combines hydrogen fuel cells with electric power to formulate what the company refers to as a plug-in fuel cell (pFC) powertrain. This groundbreaking concept seeks to eliminate the range anxiety phenomenon and the time required to refuel, all of which places REVO ZERO at the head of the clean energy vehicles segment.

Pioneering sustainable automotive technology: Towards a new generation of combustion engines
The pFC Drivetrain is a parallel combination of the I-FS Drivetrain and the J-JS Drivetrain. The pFC technology of REVO ZERO combines a hydrogen fuel cell with a hybrid electric system to provide a highly superior powertrain. The ENERGY SUV employs a battery as the main power source, and a hydrogen fuel cell is an auxiliary power source in driving and power. management.            READ MORE...

Motorcycle Without Gasoline or Electricity

Sustainable mobility is not just for cars, although they are the ones we pay most attention to. The key is also for other personal mobility vehicles, even if one of them would never have run on a fuel that now does. We are talking about the first motorcycle that runs without gasoline or electricity, but with something better that will revolutionize transportation.

The new fuel that will revolutionise the roads: goodbye to EVS
Transport is going through a transformational period which will define a new era in vehicle engineering since companies fight for the replacement of cars which run on gas. One of the most attractive technologies is the hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, which hydrogen gas and oxygen and use treatment to produce energy.

Hydrogen has been one of the zero emission fuels widely praised for a long time and could help in addressing Environmental pollution problems like fossil fuel burning emissions which are said to be the main cause of climate change.

One of the latest pushing ahead comes from Japan’s motorbike manufacturer Suzuki. During the last week of September, Suzuki revealed their new hydrogen-powered model, which is a modified version of their popular Burgman scooter.

The hydrogen Burgman shows us a rough patch of what it could be like when electric-powered quiet and clean-scooters and motorcycles powered by hydrogen replace what we now have which are loud and harmful fossil-fuel operated models.     READ MORE...

New Method of Producing Hydrogen Energy

A new method for efficient hydrogen production that separates oxygen and hydrogen generation, developed by researchers in Sweden, eliminates explosion risks and the need for rare Earth metals, with a 99 percent efficiency rate. This innovation promises easier integration with renewable energies and has significant potential for commercial application.


Scientists in Sweden have developed an innovative method for generating hydrogen energy with enhanced efficiency. This process separates water into oxygen and hydrogen, eliminating the hazardous possibility of the two gases combining.


Developed at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, the new method decouples the standard electrolysis process for producing hydrogen gas, which splits water molecules by applying an electric current. In contrast with prevailing systems, it produces the resulting oxygen and hydrogen gases separately rather than simultaneously in the same cell, where they need to be separated by membrane barriers.     READ MORE...

Toyota and Hydrogen

The global automotive industry has made a massive turnaround in the past few years, with an onslaught of EVs from every brand, and some like Jaguar who plan to ditch combustion engines altogether. It's safe to say that with EVs on the rise and e-fuel production still in its infancy, the future of the internal combustion engine has never been more uncertain. 

However, Toyota is adamant on finding alternate paths to vehicular propulsion. Their first attempt was the hydrogen fuel cell-powered Toyota Mirai, which barely dented EV demand due to the problems associated with hydrogen tanks and the rarity of fuel stations.

However, Toyota hasn't given up on hydrogen. They learned from the Mirai's shortcomings and took an all-new approach with how they use hydrogen as a fuel, eventually coming up with the hydrogen combustion engine. Unlike a fuel cell which acts as a battery and drives an electric motor, the hydrogen combustion engine does exactly what the name suggests. 

Toyota took a regular Corolla engine, modified its internals, and used liquid hydrogen instead of gasoline as the fuel. The results? Carbon-free emissions and performance that's on par with a gasoline engine. However, it's an oversimplification compared to the merits that hydrogen brings over EVs, ten of which will follow.

ONE
With fossil fuels being a limited resource that's already depleting at a rapid rate, there's always the distant fear of what will happen once the oil reserves do run out. Synthetic fuels and e-fuels are clearly not widespread enough to help mitigate the problem. 

That's where hydrogen – being the most abundant element in the universe – comes in handy. The idea of hydrogen acting as a fuel that can not only power future ICE cars but also existing and older engines through a conversion, is truly exciting.  READ MORE...

Hydrogen From Sunlight

Series of four still images from a sample video showing how a photoreactor from Rice University splits water molecules and generates hydrogen when stimulated by simulated sunlight. Credit: Mohite lab/Rice University

Rice University engineers can turn sunlight into hydrogen with record-breaking efficiency thanks to a device that combines next-generation halide perovskite semiconductors with electrocatalysts in a single, durable, cost-effective and scalable device.

The new technology is a significant step forward for clean energy and could serve as a platform for a wide range of chemical reactions that use solar-harvested electricity to convert feedstocks into fuels.

The lab of chemical and biomolecular engineer Aditya Mohite built the integrated photoreactor using an anticorrosion barrier that insulates the semiconductor from water without impeding the transfer of electrons.

According to a study published in Nature Communications, the device achieved a 20.8% solar-to-hydrogen conversion efficiency.

"Using sunlight as an energy source to manufacture chemicals is one of the largest hurdles to a clean energy economy," said Austin Fehr, a chemical and biomolecular engineering doctoral student and one of the study's lead authors. 

"Our goal is to build economically feasible platforms that can generate solar-derived fuels. Here, we designed a system that absorbs light and completes electrochemical water-splitting chemistry on its surface."

The device is known as a photoelectrochemical cell because the absorption of light, its conversion into electricity and the use of the electricity to power a chemical reaction all occur in the same device. Until now, using photoelectrochemical technology to produce green hydrogen was hampered by low efficiencies and the high cost of semiconductors.  READ MORE...

Green Path for Hydrogen

Hydrogen has great promise as a low-emission fuel source. It burns clean, generating only water as a by-product, and when it’s produced through electrolysis by splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen, the entire life cycle can be very environmentally friendly.

But the use of hydrogen has never reached its potential as a renewable fuel, mostly because its production process drives up the cost. Most hydrogen today is still produced as a by-product of fossil-fuel refinement—using methane with carbon monoxide as a by-product. 

Meanwhile, the hydrogen produced by electrolysis represents less than 1 percent of all the world’s hydrogen production. In order for hydrogen to be a viable source of clean energy, the cost of electrolysis needs to be much lower.

Sharaf Alsharif, a researcher at the Oldenburger OFFIS Institute for Information Technology in Oldenburg, Germany, believes digital twins could help bring down the cost of clean hydrogen production.

Digital twins are computer-simulation programs that can track and adjust the operations of a physical device in great detail. The close monitoring of hydrogen electrolyzers that digital twins provide could help streamline the devices’ operation and bring down the cost of electrolysis as a result.  READ MORE...

Storing Hydrogen

Researchers at the RIKEN Center for Emergent Matter Science (CEMS) in Japan have found a simple and affordable way to store ammonia, an important chemical in a range of industries. The discovery could also help in establishing a hydrogen-based economy.

Ammonia, chemically written as NH3, is widely used across industries ranging from textiles to pharmaceuticals and is an important component in the manufacture of fertilizers. For its current use, ammonia is stored in pressure-resistant containers after liquefying it at temperatures of -27 Fahrenheit (-33 degrees Celsius).

Alternate methods of storing ammonia in porous compounds have been explored. The storage and retrieval process can be achieved at room temperature, but the storage capacity of these compounds is limited.

A research team led by Masuki Kawamoto at RIKEN CEMS has now found that perovskites, crystalline structures associated with improving energy conversion efficiencies of solar panels, can also serve as an excellent medium for the storage and retrieval of ammonia.

Perovskite as an ammonia carrier
Kawamoto's team found that the perovskite ethyl ammonium lead iodide (EAPbI3) reacts with ammonia at room temperature and pressure to make lead iodide hydroxide, or Pb(OH)I. Ethyl ammonium lead iodide has a one-dimensional columnar structure but, after reacting with ammonia, forms a two-dimensional layered structure.

Ammonia is a highly corrosive gas, but the chemical reaction with the perovskite allows for its safe storage that does not need any special equipment to store it either. The retrieval process is also very straightforward. Under vacuum, ethyl ammonium lead iodide can be heated to 122 Fahrenheit (50 degrees Celsius) to release ammonia gas.  READ MORE...

Hydrogen Fuel Cell

Promising new hydrogen fuel cell technology has up to 50% higher performance than current state-of-the-art technology, with improved durability. 

The grooved electrode design advance may help optimize next-generation fuel cell technology to power emission-free medium- and heavy-duty transportation.

"We had a theory that by reimagining the way electrodes are designed we could achieve improved performance," said Jacob Spendelow, materials scientist with the Los Alamos National Laboratory team that described its results in the journal Nature Energy. 

"One of our biggest takeaways is that novel materials are not the only route to improve performance. The way the materials are put together can be equally important.

"All we did was take conventional commercially available materials and change the way we put them together to change the microscale architecture, and that resulted in substantially higher performance."

Hydrogen fuel cells—and specifically a version of the technology called proton exchange membrane fuel cells—represent an emission-free engine design that uses hydrogen as a fuel. Fuel cells could transform the medium- and heavy-duty transportation sector, which has been difficult to decarbonize.  READ MORE...

Consider Hydrogen

A hydrogen vehicle is a vehicle that uses hydrogen fuel for motive power. Hydrogen vehicles include hydrogen-fueled space rockets, as well as ships and aircraft. Power is generated by converting the chemical energy of hydrogen to mechanical energy, either by reacting hydrogen with oxygen in a fuel cell to power electric motors or, less commonly, by burning hydrogen in an internal combustion engine.

As of 2021, there are two models of hydrogen cars publicly available in select markets: the Toyota Mirai (2014–), which is the world's first mass-produced dedicated fuel cell electric vehicle (FCEV), and the Hyundai Nexo (2018–). There are also fuel cell buses. Hydrogen aircraft are not expected to carry many passengers long haul before the 2030s at the earliest.

As of 2019, 98% of hydrogen is produced by steam methane reforming, which emits carbon dioxide.  It can be produced by electrolysis of water, or by thermochemical or pyrolytic means using renewable feedstocks, but the processes are currently expensive.  Various technologies are being developed that aim to deliver costs low enough, and quantities great enough, to compete with hydrogen production using natural gas.

The benefits of hydrogen technology are long range on a single refuelling. The drawbacks of hydrogen use are high carbon emissions when hydrogen is produced from natural gas, capital cost burden, low energy content per unit volume at ambient conditions, production and compression of hydrogen, the investment required to build refuelling infrastructure around the world to dispense hydrogen, and transportation of hydrogen.  SOURCE:  Wikipedia

Fusion Reaction Creates More Energy Than It Absorbs

A major milestone has been breached in the quest for fusion energy.

For the first time, a fusion reaction has achieved a record 1.3 megajoule energy output – and for the first time, exceeding energy absorbed by the fuel used to trigger it.

Although there's still some way to go, the result represents a significant improvement on previous yields: eight times greater than experiments conducted just a few months prior, and 25 times greater than experiments conducted in 2018. It's a huge achievement.

Physicists at the National Ignition Facility at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory will be submitting a paper for peer review.

"This result is a historic step forward for inertial confinement fusion research, opening a fundamentally new regime for exploration and the advancement of our critical national security missions. It is also a testament to the innovation, ingenuity, commitment and grit of this team and the many researchers in this field over the decades who have steadfastly pursued this goal," said Kim Budil, director of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

"For me, it demonstrates one of the most important roles of the national labs – our relentless commitment to tackling the biggest and most important scientific grand challenges and finding solutions where others might be dissuaded by the obstacles."

Inertial confinement fusion involves creating something like a tiny star. It starts with a capsule of fuel, consisting of deuterium and tritium – heavier isotopes of hydrogen. This fuel capsule is placed in a hollow gold chamber about the size of a pencil eraser called a hohlraum.  READ MORE...