Cars of the future could be powered by sunflower oil

Cost remains a major obstacle for the sunflower car. The process uses some moderately expensive materials, and for now, petroleum will certainly remain a cheaper option.

• UK scientists have developed a process for making hydrogen from sunflower oil which could prove an important future source of eco-friendly energy.
• A University of Leeds team says the development could make hydrogen-powered vehicles a more realistic proposition.
• The researchers envision a small unit inside a car that would pull hydrogen out of the oil to drive a fuel cell.
• The team has presented details of its research to the annual meeting of the American Chemical Society.
• As petroleum supplies gradually dwindle and the impacts of global warming become more pressing, the arguments in the eyes of some people for moving from an oil-based economy to one based on hydrogen become more and more persuasive.
• But making hydrogen can be expensive - and with some methods will produce as much greenhouse gas as oil-burning itself.
• "The production of hydrogen from biomass and bio-oils represents a realistic renewable source," said Dr Andrew Moss, a member of the research team at Leeds.
• "This particular process could enable hydrogen to be produced from vegetable-oil-derived materials by either stationary fuel processors, or even on-board processors in fuel-cell cars."
• These cars of the future would have a tank full of sunflower oil, or some other bio-oil, that would be turned into hydrogen as you drove along.
• The hydrogen would power the fuel-cell motor - the gas being combined with oxygen in the cell to produce electricity and water.
• The Leeds method does produce some carbon dioxide, but growing more sunflowers absorbs it again from the air.
• The process employs nickel and carbon-based catalysts to orchestrate a chain of chemical reactions that ultimately liberate the gas from the hydrocarbon molecules that make up the oil.
• The Leeds team has shown the technology can work, and believes it can be miniaturised to the scale necessary for in-car use.
• "This takes away one of the problems of hydrogen storage."
• An uncompressed hydrogen gas fuel tank that contained a store of energy equivalent to a petrol tank would be more than 3,000 times bigger than its conventional cousin - which makes this latest approach attractive.
• But many obstacles remain before the sunflower car becomes reality - not least the cost.
• The process uses some moderately expensive materials, and in the short term, petrol will certainly remain the cheaper option.