There are many hurdles standing in the way of hydrogen becoming widespread as an energy carrier for our vehicles, either by the direct burning of it in internal combustion engines or in fuel cells. Very few hydrogen refueling centers exist today, and the gas is difficult to capture, transport and store. One thing is certain regarding hydrogen, though: it can offer extremely low emissions, as it does in BMW's hydrogen-burning V12 engine.

BMW's Hydrogen 7 had to be tested at Argonne National Laboratory's Center for Transportation Research because the emissions are so minute that most test-beds would not be able to detect them at all. "The BMW Hydrogen 7's emissions were only a fraction of SULEV level, making it one of the lowest emitting combustion engine vehicles that have been manufactured," said Thomas Wallner, a mechanical engineer at Argonne. In fact, Wallner adds, "the car's engine actively cleans the air. Argonne's testing shows that the Hydrogen 7's 12-cylinder engine actually shows emissions levels that, for certain components, are cleaner than the ambient air that comes into the car's engine."

The emissions from a hydrogen car have never been the problem. The problem is getting the hydrogen. The hope is that as technology continues advancing forward, new ways to capture, store and distribute hydrogen will make it cheaper and more environmentally friendly, allowing the world to consider hydrogen as one method of reducing our oil dependence. Details after the jump.

A research team at Argonne national lab has developed a new type of catalyst for use in steam reformation of natural gas that produces hydrogen. The new nickel-based catalyst has the metal grains in small particles spread out more evenly over the metal oxide substrate rather than the large clumps typically used. This has similar advantages to the nano-particle battery technologies being used by A123 and Altairnano. The smaller particles that are spread evenly provide more surface area and promote more reactions.

The team, led by chemist Michael Krumpelt, also compared platinum and ruthenium and found that although both started to reform the natural gas at 450 Celsius, the ruthenium was more stable as temperatures climbed. The ruthenium also has the advantage of costing just one percent what platinum does. The ruthenium structure is also more resistant to poisoning by sulfur in the natural gas which degrades the performance of the catalyst.

[Source: Argonne National Lab]

AutoblogGreen readers got a preview of Don Hillebrand's Thursday speech at the EDTA Conference on Wednesday. Hillebrand, director of the Center for Transportation Research at Argonne National Laboratory, had his presentation set and ready to go when I spoke with him early in the week, but by the time he got up to the podium on Thursday, the message had changed. Rick Wagoner had announced GM's upcoming PHEV, after all, so the landscape was reworked. Throwing a little bit of a pessimistic view on PHEV work, Hillebrand gave a presentation from the future (2010, to be exact) titled "Who killed the plug-in?" While emphasizing that it was the responsibility of the people gathered in the room is to make sure this satire never becomes a reality, Hillebrand laid out how bad standards, bad regulation, bad legislation, hype and haste could all kill the PHEV.

PHEVs are currently being brought to life and the DOE has directed the various labs working on the technology to be skeptical, be thorough, set hype aside and find the real benefit of PHEVs. As he explained to AutoblogGreen the other day, Argonne Lab is trying to develop a test for PHEVs to understand the real mpg rating of a car that plugs in. Hillebrand stated, but didn't explain, that CAFE standards could seriously damage PHEVs. Another trouble spot for PHEVs, bad legislation, will come about if too much money is earmarked for specific companies or vehicles, and not enough is available to go around and make a PHEV a reality. This comment was a direct warning to the people at the conference who will now go to their congressional delegates and try to get funding for their projects.

As for hype, Hillebrand said that visionaries are great, but there comes a time when you want to shoot the visionaries and hire engineers (which elicited quiet laughter).The OEMs will build PHEVs, Hillebrand said, but to do it right they need to keep costs down. Careful engineering will prevent that first battery fire that hits the news and dooms PHEVs in the market. Diesels were pushed into the marketplace before they were ready, he said, and that left a bad taste in consumer's mouths that still lingers today.

So, there's a lot of difficulties that need to be overcome to bring PHEVs to market. In case he eventually needs it, HIllebrand called dibs on the joke that will open this presentation in 2010: "The plug-in is the car of tomorrow, and it always will be."

Scientists at the Argonne National Lab operated by the Department of Energy have developed new metal alloys that could drastically reduce the cost of producing new fuels, like hydrogen. Currently production equipment used to produce fuels like hydrogen, methanol and ammonia are subject to a form of degradation known as metal dusting corrosion.

The breakdown of the metals in these reactors makes the equipment hard to maintain and increases the cost of the end production. This will allow gases to be kept at higher temperatures throughout the production process which will produce higher yields and less total energy consumption. The researchers estimate that the change could save $500 million to $1.3 billion per year just in the hydrogen production process. The new materials develop oxide scales that protect the surface from carbon attack. In the photo, samples are shown that were exposed to the dusting environment for 5,700 hours at 593° C. The new material is still smooth, while the traditional material is full of pits.

[Source: Argonne National Lab via GreenCarCongress]