ForumIAS announcing GS Foundation Program for UPSC CSE 2025-26 from 19 April. Click Here for more information.
ForumIAS Answer Writing Focus Group (AWFG) for Mains 2024 commencing from 24th June 2024. The Entrance Test for the program will be held on 28th April 2024 at 9 AM. To know more about the program visit: https://forumias.com/blog/awfg2024
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.
