Hydrogen

Are the engines running on gaseous Hydrogen?

I am wondering if there are engines that run on Hydrogen, but not in liquid, but in gaseous form?!

Let me see if I understand you correctly, Gentle Asker:

“This is the situation: You have balloon of hydrogen, let’s say at approximately 1.5 to 3.0 bar. This gas is directly to be used for power generation in an engine. Running it through a big an heavy compressor is impossible.

Note: Heavy weight solution are not practicable.”

That’s quoted from your own Question.

So am I to assume that your fuel source–the hydrogen–is also going to be a source of bouyant lift, as per an airship? Because if that is the case, some obvious things immediately come to mind:

–You are going to lose lift rather quickly as your fuel is used up. This being the most obvious one.

–Gaseous hydrogen is notoriously difficult to seal “airtight”. How do plan on keeping your fuel from escaping back into the atmosphere? More to the point, how do you plan to keep the engine’s heat from causing the fuel line back to the balloon from burning itself, especially since Hydrogen Burns invisibly, as well as with great heat?

This is not a trivial concern, especially if you plan on using engine heat itself to compensate (via hot air) for lost lift as your fuel balloon burns out.

–Are exhaust emissions a concern, for the purposes of the project? Yes, Hydrogen Burns cleanly, but not all internal combustion engines run as cleanly as Otto cycle four-strokes. And there are designes both simpler and lighter than this if you have a tolerance for sacrificing lubricant.

Ok, but first…let’s get the complex solutions out of the way:

1) Fuel cells are out because most designs that are small enough for a balloon to lift also use *platinum*, which is both heavy and expensive.

2) And a “midnight sun” type of electrical generator is also out: Hydrogen Burns *invisibly*, meaning it produces no visible light, only heat. So setting up a combustion chamber that would only convert *heat* and not light, to electricity would be both larger and more expensive than necessary (thermocouples of a high efficiency tend to rely on antimony, which is not common or cheap).

2a) Not to mention, the electric motor could not be the most efficient or lightweight design itself since it would need spark retardation to keep sparking from blowing up the fuel supply. Not good.

So, having said that…

Use a single-cylinder two-stroke engine, similar in nature to what’s used in motor scooters, of 50 cubic centimeters or less. Dry lubricate the parts in graphite and teflon wherever possible in advance, and use the crankshaft to pump the hydrogen/air mixture directly into the combustion chamber. It’s not the cleanest engine, but it is bone simple and lightweight, not to mention it will run at any angle, especially given the pressurized nature of the fuel supply. And in its simplest form, the piston and engine block themselves form the valves.

There are smaller engines out there, both Otto cycle (four-stroke) and two-stroke, but the four-stroke engine is always going to have more moving parts and produce less power per unit weight of engine. Either way, there are engines as small as 5 cubic centimeters–those are commonly used to run model aircraft.

I hope this helps, and good luck to you.

Hydrogen at home (balloons and big bangs)#18

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