how hydrogen works as a fuel.
In: Technology
You can burn it with an oxidizer like oxygen and it releases a lot of heat.
The general idea is the same for all fuel you burn.
You can also use hydrogen as a fuel cell where you have a more controlled reaction with oxygen and you produce electricity directly.
You could use it as a fusion fuel too but humans hand not manage to build a fusion reactor that produces more energy than the required to start and operate. We might soon but have not yet manage in.
Hydrogen has advantages as combustion product is water so not carbon dioxide produces and it produces a lot of energy compared to the weight but not compared to the volume
Hydrogen has drawbacks. There is no natural source of is so we make it from natural gas or bu splitting water apart and that requires a lot of electricity.
Hydrogen is quite reactive to metal contains. If you store it as a pressurized gas the energy in a tube is less than the other gases you can burn. Store it as a liquid require cooling to a very low temperature.
Have missed what you asked about? Because it is quite a general question.
Remember the Hindenburg?
Hydrogen burns quite well when mixed with oxygen and gives off a fair bit of energy while doing that. Rockets take liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen and burn them in a big chamber and squirt the hot gasses out the back to get thrust. Some hydrogen powered cars use modified engines to burn hydrogen with air instead of gasoline.
Another option is to use a fuel cell which takes hydrogen and mixes it with oxygen to create water and directly captures electrical energy from the reaction rather than capturing the heat as thrust(rocket) or pressure(car engine), this is more efficient but requires fancier equipment.
Hydrogen sets on fire, bonds to oxygen in the air, releases lots of energy which we can use. The hydrogen and oxygen forms H2O (water). It’s basically just useful because it’s flammable. The other stuff’s a bonus.
Source: I have a physics degree
Hydrogen is extremely flammable (google “Hindenburg”), so you can run it into an internal combustion engine and burn it like gasoline.
You can also use hydrogen in a fuel cell to make electricity, and then use that electricity to do work.
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