A Controlled Hydrogen Generator; Alternate Fuel Source for Vehicles

Abstract

In recent years, hydrogen has been expected and used as a next-generation energy source from the viewpoint of reducing the use of fossil fuels. Research on hydrogen utilization technologies have been conducted actively for IC engine. There are two methods for the hydrogen-powered generation system: fuel cells and hydrogen engine generators. This work proposes design of a new hydrogen engine generator that has characteristics of low cost and higher durability compared to a fuel cell. The proposed hydrogen generator has the capability to control the generation and flow of hydrogen electronically so as to avoid the risk of explosion. Since if the hydrogen flow rate of the hydrogen engine generator is not controlled appropriately, RPM is dropped and the engine operation becomes unstable, or the fuel efficiency becomes worse. Therefore, it is necessary to control the output of the hydrogen engine generator by adjusting the hydrogen flow rate depending on the output power. Hence, this project proposes an automatic system to control the output of hydrogen engine.