Market future of fuel cell cars

 Hello everybody, today we're publishing what we think is an important step forward in the world of fuel cell and is that Mercedes Benz has finally announced their new B-class fuel cell car as you can see in the official website http://www.mbusa.com/mercedes/benz/green. It's characteristics equivalent to a standar family car with a range of up to 240 miles, the equivalent of nearly 90 highway mpg, and only water vapor as its emissions. However is still not competitive with the other cars, the ones with internal combustion engine, because of its price. Although responsibles say that te price is not specified yet  the speculated price in TV programs such as Top Gear  is very high and people who can afford such a price for a car prefer a more powerful gasoline car. But the B-class won´t be at market officialy until 2014 ans as Dieter Zetsche, chairman of the board of management of Daimler and head of Mercedes-Benz Cars, has said in  (http://www.insideline.com/mercedes-benz/mercedes-benz-fuel-cell-car-ready-for-market-in-2014.html), they want to make prices more competitive so we don't loose our hope. In the video below appears the previously mentioned Dieter Zetsche presenting the car in the Detroit auto show.

This is an important bet for the future of fuel cell in market and, as we support this energy source, best luck and wishes to Mercedes-Benz in the development of this car. 

Delivery sistems

Hydrogen and fuel cells have the potential to solve the major energy security and environmental challenges that face decendence on petroleum imports, poor air quality and gas emissions. But the overall challenge to hydrogen production is cost reduction.

 In order to succeed in the commercial marketplace, hydrogen must be comparable to conventional fuels and technologies on a cost-competitive transportation. A hydrogen economy requires an infraestructure to deliver hydrogen from where it's produced to the point of end-use. It includes a stationary power site, compressors, trucks and dispensers for delivering fuel.

Becouse of that, the U.S. Deparment of Energy supports a research with 7 million dolars to develop a wide range of technologies, to allow an economically and environmentally friendly production of hydrogen. The money will be given to four projects in California, Washington and Oregon to advanced hydrogen storage technologies, in order to help domestic automakers bring more fuel cell electric vehicles into the mainstream market. They attend to increase the performance of hydrogen storage by developing innovative materials, as well as advanced tanks for efficcient and safe transportation, in a three-year project that will help lower the cost of this energy source.
The technologies used for storing hydrogen vehicles will also affect the design and selection of a hydrogen delivery system and infraestructure. The system must avoid any unnecessary energy-intensive stage to maximize the overall energy efficiency. We have to consider three potential delivery paths:

1. Gaseous hydrogen delivery
2. Liquid hydrogen delivery
3. Novel solid or liquid hydrogen carriers 

 The liquid and gas paths transport pure hydrogen in its molecular form (H) via truck, pipeline, rail or barge, and those are primary methods for deliveryng industrial hydrogen today. The carrier pathway uses materials that transport hydrogen in another form than free H_2 molecules, such as liquid hydrocarbons, metal hybrides, chemical hybrides or ther hydrogen-rich compounds. Here are an explaining figure:

Gaseous Delivery Pathway

Liquid Hydrogen Delivery Pathway

Hydrogen Carrier Delivery Pathway

Source: www.wikipedia.com ,
 http://www1.eere.energy.gov/hydrogenandfuelcells/production/

Hydrogen for smartphones

Apple has once more demonstrated their foresight and worry for the actual problems of their users. Nowadays nearly everyone has a smarphone, and therefore everyone knows that they barely last for a day or two. Seeing to it, Apple has designed a set of Hydrogen fuelled batteries that can go on for weeks, being the only drawback  the fact that they are disposable.

Some may think that that's not a drawback, but I am myself skeptical about the price those batteries will have, because they may be a perfect solution or a viable option depending on the case, or even a complete disaster. There is much to be known, like the posible implementation with current devices, or whether they'll be exclusive  to the new Apple models, being that the most likely option.

Anyway, it is not to be denied the fact that it is a very important step forward in the world of batteries, and maybe an end to the lithium batteries.

I leave you the link I've found, but I expect to find some with more information in later days. Keep posted!

Link: http://gadgetsteria.com/2012/01/17/apple-to-introduce-hydrogen-fuel-cells-in-future-products/