Unconventional thermal and electric engines

Over the past few years, there has been an explosion in the number of dihydrogen-based industrial projects around the world, with massive government support. One of the advantages of dihydrogen is that it is carbon-free and can simultaneously store energy and produce electricity. What's more, it can be transported, subject to strict safety protocols, in liquid and gaseous form, provided that the distance between the place of production and the place of use is not too great, so as not to jeopardize its life cycle.

This transition faces a number of challenges, as the infrastructure for transporting, storing and securing hydrogen remains a key issue, as does the cost of production.

Conventional dihydrogen is usually produced by gasification of charcoal and biomass, steam reforming of biogas and, to a lesser extent, electrolysis of water. Hydrogen is widely used as a raw material in the manufacture of ammonia, fertilizers and methanol. It is also used as a reagent in crude oil refining processes. High CO ₂ emitting industries including metallurgy and glassmaking are at the forefront of attempts to significantly reduce carbon footprints. The use of hydrogen, however, outside the industrial framework in which it is employed today with strictly regulated protocols, poses serious safety issues due to the neuralgic risks of leaks, fires, conflagrations and explosions. The generation of electricity storage in electric batteries also needs to be closely monitored, as batteries generate flammable gases that can potentially cause fires or explosions, with hydrogen of course leading to scenarios with more serious consequences due to the extreme lightness of this molecule.

However, the use of hydrogen in mobility is a highly investigated area of applied research. An overview of hydrogen and oxygen-powered machines must therefore be drawn up, distinguishing between the different uses of fuel cells and piston engines, depending on their field of application.

There are five priority paths to decarbonizing transport: electricity, hydrogen, additivated or enriched hydrogen, gaseous fuels such as biomethanization and its derivatives with biomass, and synthetic fuels obtained by combining hydrogen with CO ₂ . The dihydrogen molecule now part of the decarbonized energy revolution of energy conversion machines is to be handled with extreme caution like milk on the fire. The equations of detonation make it possible to first identify the major sources of danger of this molecule in order to bring them under control.

Innovations in progress and breakthroughs across the whole range of mobilities also need to be analyzed in detail,...