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Join Date: Jul 2000
Location: Houston, Tejas
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Hydrogen is made from water, using electricty. It is mearly an energy storage system.

Some Problems:

It doesn't have a lot of energy, so you have to compress it a lot.
High Pressure hydrogen does not work like regular gasses, it heats up as it expands.
Above a certain pressure, leaks auto ignite
It has the widest flammability range of any fuel. Even tiny amounts (5%) mixtures in air will ignite. And even small amounts of contamination by Air in the hydrogen (also 5%) will ignite.
When it does catch fire, the flame is invisible, in the ultraviolet range. You need special sensors to detect hydrogen fires.

In the business, we have different ratings of equipment used in hazardous environments (Flammable, explosive, etc). Gasoline is rated "C" like propane. Natural Gas is "D", Hydrogen is "B" and Acetylene is "A". The rating is based on the amount of energy in a spark required to ignite a mixture. So, A is easiest, and D is hardest. Hydrogen is the second easiest. In general, if we have more than 5% hydrogen, we have to go for "B" rated equipment.
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Old 06-16-2008, 04:04 PM
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