Natural Gas Could Be Key To Powering Fuel Cell Vehicles

An article in Forbes magazine describes how natural gas may well become the cleanest, cheapest, and most common source of creating hydrogen for fuel cell cars. Natural gas is the cleanest of all fossil fuels, since it contains one carbon and four hydrogen atoms per molecule. That molecular structure also means that hydrogen can be produced cheaply from natural gas using a process known as “steam reformation,” which separates the carbon from the hydrogen. Natural gas’s wide availability, coupled with its suitability as a hydrogen source, means the gas is likely to become indispensable in producing hydrogen for fuel cell cars, which run on an electrochemical reaction that occurs when hydrogen is used as a fuel and oxygen as an oxidant.