Mahmoud Kafrawi - Kuwait

KUWAIT: A team of scientists at the Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research (KISR) hope their research on hydrogen energy will make a big breakthrough in electric vehicle manufacturing technology in the future after they have successfully used hydrogen fuel to run electric cars for the first time.

The nanotechnology team, led by the Egyptian scientist Mohamed Sherif al-Iskandarani, focuses on taking advantage of hydrogen properties that produce tremendous energy when converted to electricity without any harmful gas emissions such as those produced by burning fossil fuels or various petroleum products.

The use of this type of energy globally has faced several challenges, the most important of which is the way to obtain the hydrogen element itself, which is usually produced by sea water analysis consisting of a combination of oxygen and hydrogen, which currently needs high thermal energy using fossil fuels.

Scientists around the world hope scientists will provide the use of solar cells a less expensive source of hydrogen from sea water.

At the same time, scientists face a second problem: how to transfer the hydrogen element itself, which is difficult to transport because of its lightness. It needs to be transferred to large reservoirs, so the alternative is to compress the gas at very high levels of about 350 times the atmospheric pressure.

The third problem is how hydrogen is stored to be used to generate electric power to operate electric vehicles. Scientists here at some stage used CD-ROMs, but this has a big problem with the level of safety of the CD-ROM at very high rates.

In addition to the previous problems of the conversion of hydrogen compressed from gas to liquid at a temperature of 250 below zero, a very expensive way.

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The previous problems prompted Dr Iskandarani, according to Al-Jazeera Net, to search for a new way to store hydrogen atoms in other materials that are less expensive, specifically in metals.

With funding from the Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of Sciences (SCF), Alexander and his team began a research project to identify and store materials that can capture and store hydrogen in good quantities, and study how to stimulate it to break away from the material at relatively low temperatures, which lasted from 2013 to 2016.

The research ended with magnesium as an element of hydrogen storage. It can store about 7.6% of its weight, which is a very high level. It also has the potential to store at much lower levels of conventional pressure.

The researchers also found that nickel and palladium were used as catalysts for magnesium in a single substance. The polarized hydrogen was then released at a low temperature for use in generating electricity after passing on fuel cells that turned it into an electric current. 2017.

Director of the Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research Samira Al-Sayed Omar with Alexandrani during the operation of the hydrogen fuel car (Al Jazeera)

Since 2016, researchers at the Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research (KISR) have begun the second phase of their work, which ends in January, based on access to an electric car model using dry hydrogen fuel instead of currently known methods that rely on the use of water source and exposure For an electrolysis of the hydrogen release to feed the electric motor, a high-cost method, or those that rely on battery charging on a domestic electricity source.

At first, research was conducted on electronic gaming cars to charge their batteries using hydrogen fuel technology, and then the team succeeded in charging the batteries in the same way as initial steps.

Following the success of these tests, the application began on a small 48-volt golf car that was fed by six eight-volt batteries shipped directly from a conventional power source.

With hydrogen fuel, the team managed - with some changes - to charge those batteries via hydrogen energy and to operate the car that was temporarily brought to the test. The next stage will see the availability of a golf car for the center to be used in the application of new technology.

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Using seven kilograms of the material, it is possible to drive a car for 500 kilometers at a speed of 100 km / h, ie, for five full hours, thanks to the consumption of the existing hydrogen ratio, equivalent to 7.6% of the material in which the hydrogen is then re-stored.

The use of this technology in ordinary cars requires research efforts led by major companies that can make the required changes to the engines of the car and internal combustion engines. In addition, the impact of the enormous thermal energy resulting from the use of hydrogen on the stability of the alloy from which the engine is made at the present time.

"There is not yet a car in the world that is powered by hydrogen fuel, because the battery is currently being used," said Alexander, who holds a master's and doctoral degree in materials science and nanotechnology from Japan's Tuhoku University, where he worked as a professor for 16 years.

The Egyptian world hopes that major companies will fund research to use the cheaper technology for future car operations.