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While petrol and diesel may be on the road to nowhere, alternative fuels could come to the fore to give combustion engines a new lease of life. This could mean a hydrogen-burning future.
Vehicles such as the Honda Clarity and Toyota Mirai have set hydrogen up as a fuel used to create electricity to power something that is ostensibly an EV. But the fuel doesn’t have to be fed into a fuel-cell stack, and could instead be burned in a combustion engine.
JCB backs hydrogen
It isn’t a new concept, but it is one that hasn’t entered mainstream thoughts until recently as the automotive industry is instead investing billions in battery-electric technology. There are dissenting voices to the battery EV future, though.
JCB has injected £100m to develop hydrogen engines for its off-highway machines and has already pulled the covers off a prototype hydrogen-powered backhoe loader and a loadall telescopic handler. The firm has 100 engineers working on the project.
Hydrogen-based combustion, if successful, could be incredibly simple as it adapts established engine technology with readily available components, in a similar way to how diesel is used.
JCB said it is confident that “our prototype backhoe loader, fitted with this new hydrogen motor, can do everything its diesel-powered equivalent can do. What’s more, the technology is less complicated than hydrogen fuel-cell technology. Nothing but steam is emitted from the tailpipe. Zero CO2 at point of use.”
Advantages over batteries
JCB’s reasons for developing hydrogen combustion engines are sensible. Batteries are not practical for equipment with high power demands, and for machines that work in remote locations. They’d also add weight and cost, and charging could be a serious issue given the usage cycles.
Those issues aren’t true of passenger vehicles and motorcycles, but it hasn’t stopped a consortium of big automotive names joining together to develop hydrogen combustion engine technology.
Toyota, Denso, Mazda, Kawasaki, Subaru and Yamaha are working together to deliver carbon-neutral mobility, part of which is broadening the choice for consumers by utilising the benefits of combustion engines.
Toyota is leading the charge and has already put a hydrogen combustion engine on the track with its Corolla Sport-based race car at the Super Taikyu Series. The vehicle uses a turbocharged 1,618cc inline three-cylinder unit fed with compressed hydrogen. What better place to hone future technologies than on the track?
Toyota said: “Hydrogen engines generate power through the combustion of hydrogen using fuel supply and injection systems that have been modified from those used with gasoline engines. Except for the combustion of minute amounts of engine oil during driving, which is also the case with gasoline engines, hydrogen engines emit zero CO2 when in use.
“Combustion in hydrogen engines occurs at a faster rate than in gasoline engines, resulting in good responsiveness. While having excellent environmental performance, hydrogen engines also have the potential to relay the fun of driving, including through sounds and vibrations.”
The elephant in the room is efficiency and output – how much hydrogen do you have to burn to travel X miles and how much horsepower and torque can be produced?
Output and torque boosted
In the six months leading up to the Super Taikyu race, the development team were able to improve powertrain output by 20% and torque by 30%. Work still needs to be done to get hydrogen to the same level as gasoline and diesel in terms of thermal efficiency but progress is being made.
The combustion engine’s future could be a lot brighter than many would think. Petrol and diesel may well disappear but igniting fuel in a combustion chamber could be with us for some time to come, on building sites, race tracks and even public roads.
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