Test drive BMW and hydrogen: part one
Test Drive

Test drive BMW and hydrogen: part one

Test drive BMW and hydrogen: part one

The roar of the impending storm still echoed in the sky as the huge plane approached the landing site near New Jersey. On May 6, 1937, the Hindenburg airship made its first flight of the season, taking 97 passengers on board.

In a few days, a huge balloon filled with hydrogen is due to fly back to Frankfurt am Main. All seats on the flight have long been reserved by American citizens eager to witness the coronation of British King George VI, but fate decreed that these passengers would never board the aircraft giant.

Shortly after the completion of preparations for the landing of the airship, its commander Rosendahl noticed the flames on its hull, and after a few seconds the huge ball turned into an ominous flying log, leaving only pitiful metal fragments on the ground after another half a minute. One of the most surprising things about this story is the heartwarming fact that many of the passengers aboard the burning airship eventually managed to survive.

Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin dreamed of flying in a lighter-than-air vehicle at the end of the 1917th century, sketching a rough diagram of a light gas-filled aircraft and launching projects for its practical implementation. Zeppelin lived long enough to see his creation gradually enter people's lives, and died in 1923, shortly before his country lost World War I, and the use of his ships was prohibited by the Treaty of Versailles. The Zeppelins were forgotten for many years, but everything changes again at a dizzying speed with the coming to power of Hitler. The new head of Zeppelin, Dr. Hugo Eckner, strongly believes that a number of significant technological changes are required in the design of airships, the main one of which is the replacement of flammable and dangerous hydrogen with helium. Unfortunately, however, the United States, which at the time was the only producer of this strategic raw material, could not sell helium to Germany under a special law passed by Congress in 129. This is why the new ship, designated LZ XNUMX, is eventually fueled with hydrogen.

The construction of a huge new balloon made of light aluminum alloys reaches a length of almost 300 meters and has a diameter of about 45 meters. The giant aircraft, equivalent to the Titanic, is powered by four 16-cylinder diesel engines, each with 1300 hp. Naturally, Hitler did not miss the opportunity to turn the "Hindenburg" into a vivid propaganda symbol of Nazi Germany and did everything possible to accelerate the start of its exploitation. As a result, already in 1936 the "spectacular" airship made regular transatlantic flights.

On the first flight in 1937, the New Jersey landing site was crowded with excited spectators, enthusiastic encounters, relatives and journalists, many of whom waited for hours for the storm to subside. Even the radio covers an interesting event. At some point, the anxious expectation is interrupted by the silence of the speaker, who, after a moment, hysterically shouts: “A huge fireball is falling from the sky! There is no one alive ... The ship suddenly lights up and instantly looks like a giant burning torch. Some passengers in a panic began to jump from the gondola to escape the terrifying fire, but it turned out to be fatal for them because of the height of one hundred meters. In the end, only a few of the passengers who wait for the airship to approach land survive, but many of them are badly burned. At some point, the ship could not withstand the damage of the raging fire, and thousands of liters of ballast water in the bow began to pour into the ground. The Hindenburg lists rapidly, the burning rear end crashes into the ground and ends in complete destruction in 34 seconds. The shock of the spectacle shakes the crowd gathered on the ground. At that time, the official cause of the crash was considered to be thunder, which caused the ignition of hydrogen, but in recent years, a German and American expert categorically argue that the tragedy with the Hindenburg ship, which went through many storms without problems, was the cause of the disaster. After numerous observations of archival footage, they came to the conclusion that the fire started due to combustible paint covering the skin of the airship. The fire of a German airship is one of the most sinister disasters in the history of mankind, and the memory of this terrible event is still very painful for many. Even today, the mention of the words "airship" and "hydrogen" evokes the fiery hell of New Jersey, although if "domesticated" appropriately, the lightest and most abundant gas in nature could be extremely useful, despite its dangerous properties. According to a large number of modern scientists, the real era of hydrogen is still ongoing, although at the same time, the other large part of the scientific community is skeptical about such extreme manifestations of optimism. Among the optimists who support the first hypothesis and the most staunch supporters of the hydrogen idea, of course, must be the Bavarians from BMW. The German automotive company is probably best aware of the inevitable challenges on the path to a hydrogen economy and, above all, overcomes the difficulties in the transition from hydrocarbon fuels to hydrogen.

Ambitions

The very idea of ​​using a fuel that is as environmentally friendly and inexhaustible as fuel reserves sounds like magic to a humanity in the grip of an energy struggle. Today, there are more than one or two "hydrogen societies" whose mission is to promote a positive attitude towards light gas and constantly organize meetings, symposiums and exhibitions. Tire company Michelin, for example, is investing heavily in organizing the increasingly popular Michelin Challenge Bibendum, a global forum focused on hydrogen for sustainable fuels and cars.

However, the optimism emanating from speeches at such forums is still not enough for the practical implementation of a wonderful hydrogen idyll, and entering the hydrogen economy is an infinitely complex and impracticable event at this technological stage in the development of civilization.

Recently, however, humanity has been striving to use more and more alternative energy sources, namely, hydrogen can become an important bridge for storing solar, wind, water and biomass energy, converting it into chemical energy. ... In simple terms, this means that the electricity produced by these natural sources cannot be stored in large volumes, but can be used to produce hydrogen by breaking down water into oxygen and hydrogen.

Strange as it sounds, some oil companies are among the main proponents of this scheme, among which the most consistent is the British oil giant BP, which has a specific investment strategy for significant investments in this area. Of course, hydrogen can also be extracted from non-renewable hydrocarbon sources, but in this case, humanity must look for a solution to the problem of storing carbon dioxide obtained in this process. It is an indisputable fact that the technological problems of hydrogen production, storage and transportation are solvable - in practice, this gas is already produced in large quantities and used as a raw material in the chemical and petrochemical industries. In these cases, however, the high cost of hydrogen is not fatal, since it "melts" into the high cost of the products in the synthesis of which it participates.

However, the question of using light gas as an energy source is somewhat more complicated. Scientists have been racking their brains for a long time looking for a possible strategic alternative to fuel oil, and so far they have come to the unanimous opinion that hydrogen is the most environmentally friendly and available in sufficient energy. Only he meets all the necessary requirements for a smooth transition to a change in the current status quo. Underlying all these benefits is a simple but very important fact – the extraction and use of hydrogen revolves around the natural cycle of water compounding and decomposition… If humanity improves production methods using natural sources such as solar energy, wind and water, hydrogen can be produced and use in unlimited quantities without emitting any harmful emissions. As a renewable energy source, hydrogen has long been the result of significant research in various programs in North America, Europe and Japan. The latter, in turn, are part of the work on a wide range of joint projects aimed at creating a complete hydrogen infrastructure, including production, storage, transportation and distribution. Often these developments are accompanied by significant government subsidies and are based on international agreements. In November 2003, for example, the International Hydrogen Economy Partnership Agreement was signed, which includes the world's largest industrialized countries such as Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Iceland, India, Italy and Japan. , Norway, Korea, Russia, UK, US and European Commission. The purpose of this international cooperation is "to organize, stimulate and unite the efforts of various organizations on the path to the hydrogen era, as well as to support the creation of technologies for the production, storage and distribution of hydrogen."

The possible path to the use of this environmentally friendly fuel in the automotive sector can be twofold. One of them is devices known as "fuel cells", in which the chemical combination of hydrogen with oxygen from the air releases electricity, and the second is the development of technologies for using liquid hydrogen as fuel in the cylinders of a classic internal combustion engine. The second direction is psychologically closer to both consumers and car companies, and BMW is its brightest supporter.

Winemaking

Currently, more than 600 billion cubic meters of pure hydrogen are produced worldwide. The main raw material for its production is natural gas, which is processed in a process known as "reforming". Smaller amounts of hydrogen are recovered by other processes such as electrolysis of chlorine compounds, partial oxidation of heavy oil, coal gasification, coal pyrolysis to produce coke, and gasoline reforming. Approximately half of the world's hydrogen production is used for the synthesis of ammonia (which is used as a feedstock in the production of fertilizers), in oil refining and in the synthesis of methanol. These production schemes burden the environment to varying degrees, and, unfortunately, none of them offer a meaningful alternative to the current energy status quo - firstly, because they use non-renewable sources, and secondly, because that production releases unwanted substances such as carbon dioxide, which is the main culprit. Greenhouse effect. An interesting proposal to solve this problem was recently made by researchers funded by the European Union and the German government, who have created a so-called “sequestration” technology, in which carbon dioxide produced during the production of hydrogen from natural gas is pumped into old depleted fields. oil, natural gas or coal. However, this process is not easy to implement, since neither oil nor gas fields are true cavities in the earth's crust, but are most often porous sandy structures.

The most promising future method of producing hydrogen remains the decomposition of water by electricity, known since elementary school. The principle is extremely simple - an electrical voltage is applied to two electrodes immersed in a water bath, while positively charged hydrogen ions go to the negative electrode, and negatively charged oxygen ions go to the positive one. In practice, several main methods are used for this electrochemical decomposition of water - "alkaline electrolysis", "membrane electrolysis", "high pressure electrolysis" and "high temperature electrolysis".

Everything would be perfect if the simple arithmetic of division did not interfere with the extremely important problem of the origin of the electricity needed for this purpose. The fact is that at present, its production inevitably emits harmful by-products, the amount and type of which varies depending on how it is done, and, above all, the production of electricity is an inefficient and very expensive process.

Breaking the vicious and closing the cycle of clean energy is currently only possible when using natural and especially solar energy to generate electricity needed to decompose water. Solving this problem will undoubtedly require a lot of time, money and effort, but in many parts of the world, generating electricity in this way has already become a fact.

BMW, for example, plays an active role in the creation and development of solar power plants. The power plant, built in the small Bavarian town of Neuburg, uses photovoltaic cells to produce energy that produces hydrogen. Systems that use solar energy to heat water are particularly interesting, the company's engineers say, and the resulting steam powers electricity generators - such solar plants are already operating in the Mojave Desert in California, which generates 354 MW of electricity. Wind power is also becoming increasingly important, with wind farms on the coasts of countries such as the US, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and Ireland playing an increasingly important economic role. There are also companies extracting hydrogen from biomass in different parts of the world.

Storage

Hydrogen can be stored in large quantities both in gas and liquid phases. The largest of these reservoirs, in which hydrogen is at a relatively low pressure, are called "gas meters". Medium and smaller tanks are suitable for storing hydrogen at a pressure of 30 bar, while the smallest special tanks (expensive devices made of special steel or composite materials reinforced with carbon fiber) maintain a constant pressure of 400 bar.

Hydrogen can also be stored in a liquid phase at -253°C per unit volume, containing 0 times more energy than when stored at 1,78 bar – to achieve the equivalent amount of energy in liquefied hydrogen per unit volume, the gas must be compressed up to 700 bar. It is precisely because of the higher energy efficiency of cooled hydrogen that BMW is collaborating with the German refrigeration concern Linde, which has developed modern cryogenic devices for liquefying and storing hydrogen. Scientists also offer other, but less applicable, alternatives to hydrogen storage, for example, storage under pressure in special metal flour in the form of metal hydrides, etc.

Transportation

In areas with a high concentration of chemical plants and oil refineries, a hydrogen transmission network has already been established. In general, the technology is similar to the transportation of natural gas, but the use of the latter for the needs of hydrogen is not always possible. However, even in the last century, many houses in European cities were lit by a light gas pipeline, which contained up to 50% hydrogen and was used as fuel for the first stationary internal combustion engines. Today's level of technology also allows transcontinental transportation of liquefied hydrogen via existing cryogenic tankers, similar to those used for natural gas. At present, scientists and engineers are making the greatest hopes and efforts in the field of creating adequate technologies for the liquefaction and transportation of liquid hydrogen. In this sense, it is these ships, cryogenic railway tanks and trucks that can become the basis for the future transport of hydrogen. In April 2004, the first-of-its-kind liquefied hydrogen filling station, jointly developed by BMW and Steyr, was opened in the immediate vicinity of Munich Airport. With its help, filling the tanks with liquefied hydrogen is carried out fully automatically, without participation and without risk for the driver of the car.

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