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By Judith Perera LONDON, Oct 28 (IPS) - As the world focuses its attention once again on global warming, U.S. and Japanese scientists have announced technological breakthroughs which could -- could -- mean environmentally friendly cars by early next century.
U.S. researchers have been working on the development of a fuel cell for petrol driven cars, the Japanese have devised more efficient catalytic converters. Both teams claim to have reduced harmful emissions to virtually zero.
The new fuel cell technology was a joint effort between Plug Power LLC, of Latham, New York, which developed the fuel cell, Arthur Little of Cambridge (Massachusetts), which developed the fuel processor and the Los Alamos National Laboratory which develo ped the carbon monoxide removal system.
The demonstration vehicle was produced under a U.S. government and industry programme, the Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles, which had as its target a vehicle able to travel 80 miles on one gallon of fuel, some three times the present rate. W ater vapour is the only exhaust.
Although it could take 10 years to develop the new technology commercially, U.S. Energy Secretary Federico Pena claimed: ''This breakthrough puts us on the road to pollution-free vehicles.''
While electric fuel cells, using hydrogen to power automobiles, have been a focus of research for decades, this takes the technology a step further by using petrol as the source of hydrogen, significantly simplifying the system.
The fuel cell principle has been known for over a century, since British scientist Sir William Grove discovered in 1839 that combining hydrogen and oxygen in the presence of a conductor produces electricity, with water vapour as its only waste product.
The space industry has long used fuel cells but hydrogen is difficult to produce and manage in large quantities and until now, fuel cells were too large and expensive for widespread commercial use.
Most car manufacturers have., however, been looking at the possibility of cars in which the internal combustion engine would be replaced by fuel cells. A fuel cell is essentially a sandwich of two thin plates with channels separated by thin membranes.
Hydrogen circulates through one membrane, air through the other. When combined, hydrogen and oxygen create an electrochemical reaction that produces electricity with water as a byproduct.
Early work looked at the possibility of the hydrogen coming directly from a tank aboard a vehicle but this raised many problems involving the new infrastructure which would be needed to service them.
Using the new technology, however, hydrogen can be extracted from a hydrocarbon fuel such as gasoline, natural gas, methanol or ethanol. This would allow the introduction of fuel cells using the existing worldwide networks of petrol stations.
''We've proven you can get electricity from gasoline,'' says Allen Buckman of Plug Power. A demonstration vehicle could be ready by 1999.
However, the system still needs to be reduced in size, weight and cost. Pena has set a target of a six-fold reduction in cost and the race is now on to see who achieves this first. Another company, Ballard Power Systems of Vancouver, Canada, has already developed a prototype vehicle with fuel cells are powered by methanol.
Both Ballard and the U.S. team say they expect to begin producing cars by 2005. Ballards demonstration fuel cell created a stir among scientists earlier this year. After examining it in April, Roland Hwang, head of transportation programs for the Union of Concerned Scientists in Berkeley, California said: ''They may have the Holy Grail. The innovation we have seen from them over the last five years has just blown us away.'' In August,
Daimler-Benz AG signed a
