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What is the News?
The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways has notified the use of Hydrogen as an automotive fuel in the country. It has notified an 18% blend of Hydrogen with CNG.
Must Read: About Hydrogen Fuel
What is HCNG?
HCNG stands for Hydrogen-enriched Compressed Natural Gas. HCNG is produced by blending hydrogen with CNG.
It can be used in place of gasoline, diesel fuel/LPG and its combustion produce fewer undesirable gases in comparison to normal automobile fuel.
What are the benefits of HCNG? The most important benefit of HCNG are:
– It emits 70% less carbon monoxide
– reduces total hydrocarbons emissions by around 15%
– increases fuel efficiency by 3-4%
– The power output of HCNG is better than CNG
– HCNG is easier and safer to use than hydrogen as it contains very low energy content from hydrogen, i.e., up to 30% by volume.
What are the concerns associated with HCNG?
The physical blending of CNG and hydrogen involves a series of energy-intensive steps that would make H-CNG more expensive than CNG.
Need a change in the structural aspects of the engine and creation of new infrastructure for preparing HCNG.
Determining the most optimised H2/ NG (Natural Gas) ratio.
Source: This post is based on the article “Hydrogen Fuel for Vehicles” published in PIB on 10th Feb 2022.
