Hydrogen how is it used

Hydrogen fuel cells produce electricity by combining hydrogen and oxygen atoms. The hydrogen reacts with oxygen across an electrochemical cell similar to that of a battery to produce electricity, water, and small amounts of heat. Many different types of fuel cells are available for a wide range of applications.

Small fuel cells can power laptop computers and even cell phones, and military applications. Large fuel cells can provide electricity for backup or emergency power in buildings and supply electricity in places that are not connected to electric power grids. As of the end of October , there were about operating fuel cells at facilities in the United States with a total of about megawatts MW of electric generation capacity.

The largest is the Red Lion Energy Center in Delaware with about 25 MW total electric generation capacity, which uses hydrogen produced from natural gas to operate the fuel cells. Hydrogen use in vehicles The interest in hydrogen as a transportation fuel is based on its potential for domestic production and use in fuel cells for high efficiency, zero-emission electric vehicles.

A fuel cell is two to three times more efficient than an internal combustion engine running on gasoline. Hydrogen use in vehicles is a major focus of fuel cell research and development. In the United States, several vehicle manufacturers have begun making light-duty hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles available in select regions such as Southern and Northern California where there is access to hydrogen fueling stations. Test vehicles are also available in limited numbers to select organizations with access to hydrogen fueling stations.

Most hydrogen-fueled vehicles are automobiles and transit buses that have an electric motor powered by a hydrogen fuel cell. A few of these vehicles burn hydrogen directly. The high cost of fuel cells and the limited availability of hydrogen fueling stations have limited the number of hydrogen-fueled vehicles. Production of hydrogen-fueled vehicles is limited because people won't buy those vehicles if hydrogen refueling stations are not easily accessible, and companies won't build refueling stations if they don't have customers with hydrogen-fueled vehicles.

In the United States, there are about 46 hydrogen vehicle fueling stations and nearly all are in California. The State of California's Clean Transportation Program includes assistance for establishing publicly accessible hydrogen vehicle fueling stations throughout California to promote a consumer market for zero-emission fuel cell vehicles.

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Constant Contact Use. Hydrogen can be produced from diverse, domestic resources. Currently, most hydrogen is produced from fossil fuels, specifically natural gas. Electricity—from the grid or from renewable sources such as biomass, geothermal, solar, or wind—is also currently used to produce hydrogen. In the longer term, solar energy and biomass can be used more directly to generate hydrogen as new technologies make alternative production methods cost competitive.

Most hydrogen can also be produced through steam methane reforming, a high-temperature process in which steam reacts with a hydrocarbon fuel to produce hydrogen. Another common hydrogen production method takes water, and separates the molecule H2O into oxygen and hydrogen through a process called electrolysis. Electrolysis takes place in an electrolyzer, which functions much like a fuel cell in reverse—instead of using the energy of a hydrogen molecule, like a fuel cell does, an electrolyzer produces hydrogen from water molecules.

Biological processes can also produce hydrogen through biological reactions using microbes such as bacteria and microalgae. In these processes, microbes consume plant material and produce hydrogen gas.