Alternative methods that could power your car
LPG - Liquefied petroleum gases
LPG is one of the hottest and most popular alternative fuels on the market, and could prove to be a viable alternative for the future. Since the 1990s, companies such as Opel and Volvo have been offering dual-fuel vehicles in their catalog, with LPG activating only after the engine has been sufficiently warmed up using petrol: LPG is a lean fuel and would take too long to bring the engine up to temperature.In Europe and other parts of the world, LPG remains a very valid alternative for mobility, and is the most used fuel after petrol and diesel; emissions from the tailpipe are significantly lower than petrol, even if consumption is higher. The price of LPG must therefore be about half that of gasoline, to ensure that its use is economically sustainable. LPG has been particularly successful in large vehicles, such as SUVs, where it is used to reduce running costs.
Hydrogen
Hydrogen is mainly used on fuel cell vehicles, which means that the hydrogen present in the tank is mixed with oxygen to produce electricity which activates the electric motor of the car: essentially hydrogen is used as fuel for a generator which in turn powers the engine.To date, hydrogen still struggles to find its space among the available fuels on the market, due to several factors: first of all the initial purchase cost of fuel cell vehicles, such as the Toyota Mirai or the Hyundai Nexo, but also the scarcity of hydrogen refueling points makes the use of these cars particularly difficult . However, it is also necessary to evaluate the positive aspects, such as the speed of refueling - comparable to that of a petrol vehicle - compared to the recharging of an electric car, the good mileage and the total absence of harmful gas emissions.
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Bioethanol
Widespread mainly in South American countries, bioethanol is produced using plants such as sugar cane and cereals, through a fermentation process: the ethanol produced by plants is then mixed with fuels such as gasoline or diesel to create one that can be used on most cars, without special modifications to the fuel system. Usually the percentage of bioethanol varies between 10 and 15%, an amount sufficient to significantly reduce the gases emitted by the exhaust pipe: the negative aspect is the poor energy efficiency, so it will be necessary to burn a greater quantity of bioethanol to obtain the same amount of energy that would be obtained from less petrol or diesel.CNG - Compressed Natural Gas
In the world there are about 20 million vehicles powered by CNG, gas compressed natural methane: these are mainly heavy vehicles such as buses and trucks that operate in city environments, where it is important to reduce harmful gas emissions as much as possible. In this sense, CNG does an excellent job, as it emits about 75% less particulate matter than a diesel engine, and less carbon dioxide than a petrol engine.CNG is a waste product of petroleum refining and naturally has a high octane rating, making it very easy to use in internal combustion engines. Thanks to this feature, engines that use CNG have fewer carbon deposits inside them, which also improves their durability. Among the negative aspects there is undoubtedly the need for a very large tank, since this gas cannot be compressed as is done with LPG, and for this reason it is mainly used on large vehicles. However, we have some examples of uses in motorsport, such as that of the Volkswagen Scirocco R which ran the 24 hours of the Nurburgring using CNG.
Biodiesel
Biodiesel, as well as bioethanol, it can be produced using plants such as rapeseed, or even using used cooking oils: the production process is called transesterification. This process separates biodiesel from glycerin, allowing to obtain a sufficiently clean fuel, even if it cannot be defined as "carbon neutral" precisely because of the energy - and therefore the carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere - which is used to produce it, higher to the quantity of CO2 that the plant is able to absorb.Producing biodiesel is therefore more expensive than traditional diesel, and for this very reason we have not seen a great diffusion among alternative fuels.
Propane
It is important to distinguish LPG from propane: propane can be called LPG, but LPG is not composed only of propane. Cars that use only the latter as fuel are rare, usually they are bi-fuel, so that the car can also drive using traditional petrol. It is mainly used for work vehicles operating in closed spaces, such as forklifts inside warehouses, because the emissions of harmful gases are significantly lower than traditional fuels.As in the case of CNG, the propane requires large tanks and consumption is 27% more than that of a traditional engine; among the positive aspects, however, there is the good compatibility between propane and cold climates where a petrol engine could struggle to start.
Water
How nice it would be to be able to fill up using the home tap? Unfortunately it is not that simple, even if the basic scientific concept is easy enough: electrolysis is used to divide water into oxygen and hydrogen, but to do electrolysis there is a need for current, which is generated using the hydrogen itself. It is therefore a thermally inefficient system, which can become more efficient thanks to a further modification: by using solar panels installed on the car body, it is possible to obtain “free” electricity sufficient to carry out the electrolysis.The downside? The cost of this whole system is really prohibitive.
Air
Powering a car with air seems like a joke, but there is even a patent registered by Tata, a company linked to Jaguar Land Rover: using compressed air stored in a cylinder installed on board you can run an engine, but another source of energy is needed to compress the air, which makes this system very inefficient.Citroen has used a similar system on his Cactus Airflow 2L in 2014. The French car is equipped with a normal gasoline engine assisted by two air cylinders, which is recharged using the energy regenerated during braking: in this way the car can be powered for short distances using only compressed air, or they can use the two systems simultaneously in hybrid mode.
Steam
At the beginning of the 1900s, steam engines were in strong competition with internal combustion engines, to the point of even recording a record of speed in 1906, touching the speed of 205 km / h. Combustion engines prevailed as steam engines took a long time to ignite, and were also significantly more expensive.Today, however, the steam engine can boast more than a century of development, during which it has become very efficient, silent and ecological. Using a closed circuit system, the most modern steam engines can operate with very small quantities of water, and can use different heat sources to heat the water, including ecological fuels. Furthermore, steam engines are able to express their maximum torque from the first moment of acceleration, a bit like electric motors, and the absence of a gearbox makes them very easy to drive.
Kinetic energy
This energy source is already widely used on the automotive market, under the name of “regenerative braking”. The idea is very simple: during the slowdown phases, the car is able to collect the energy released by braking by charging a battery.The efficiency of this process obviously cannot be of the 100%, so it is not possible to recharge the same amount of energy used to accelerate, and the addition of a battery installed on board will inevitably increase the weight of the vehicle: a greater weight also has a positive aspect, however, that of creating a more kinetic energy and therefore recharge the battery faster.
Solar energy
The idea of a car that never needs to be connected to the electricity or refueled at the distributor it is truly intriguing, and thanks to the constant development of solar panels it may not be an impossible solution. The attempts over the years have followed one another, without particular success: the efficiency of the few solar panels that can be installed on the roof of a car (such as Ioniq 5) is not enough to guarantee a good mileage, especially in parts of the world where the sun is a rarity.The Dutch company Lightyear claims to have managed to find the right compromise on its One, a car whose arrival on the market is still expected by the summer of 2022: it is about a car made with a very light and aerodynamic structure optimized to bring autonomy beyond 900 kilometers, equipped with a battery for energy conservation and a power outlet for use in emergencies. However, the company claims that the car can be used for months without needing to connect it to the electricity.
Nitrogen
Nitrogen is the most common gas in the Earth's atmosphere, and represents about 78% of the air we breathe: the emissions produced when it is used as a fuel are really low, and if stored in liquid form it works in a very similar way to what is seen for compressed air engines.Liquid nitrogen must be stored in a cylinder under pressure, and once released it expands and passes from liquid to gaseous form: this sudden change can be used to power a turbine, which in turn activates a generator that will produce useful current to get the car moving.
Unfortunately liquid nitrogen is very dangerous and there is no infrastructure dedicated to refueling.
Ammonia
Ammonia was used as fuel for internal combustion engines since the days of the Second World War. Its energy density is very low, to the point that consumption compared to a normal petrol engine is practically doubled; this detail has severely limited its diffusion, despite the fact that ammonia is cheap and simple to produce in large quantities. The absence of carbon in its composition means that there is no carbon dioxide among the gaseous emissions of ammonia, but the storage of large quantities of ammonia at service stations or even just in the tank of your car has always raised serious doubts. in matters of safety.Wood gas
Wood gas has been used since 1870 and reached its maximum popularity in the 1940s, when the quantities of traditional fuels could not satisfy the question. It is obtained through the gasification process of solid materials such as wood or coal, and the gas generated is then used to power internal combustion engines.The applications, over the years, have been different: in some cases we have seen gasification systems installed directly on the car, with all the consequent problems of weight and space occupied, while more recently it has been hypothesized to build refueling systems for this gas. A further possible use is once again linked to current generators that recharge batteries to power electric motors: this is a neutral solution in terms of carbon emissions, considering that the energy source is sustainable and renewable.
Alcohol
It has been used for some time in motorsport fields, such as for example in dragster races, where methanol is used. Fuels such as butane and ethanol can be easily used in internal combustion engines, and naturally offer a high octane number.Methanol has a lower energy density than gasoline, so consumption increases; on the other hand, it is very simple to produce starting from natural gas. Studies have also shown that alcohol production uses more greenhouse gases than are emitted when the aforementioned alcohol is burned within an engine, as alcohol can be obtained from sustainable crops.
Credits: Unsplash - Chris Hearn
