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Question:

Are Hydrogen Fuel cell cars explosive?

I'm curious, remember the hindenburg

Answer:

No more so than other types of car. Hydrogen also has the advantage of being lighter than air so if there is a leak the hydrogen will all go up instead of pooling around the car as propane will do (and the Hindenburg did have quite a bit more hydrogen than any hydrogen powered car will). Probably the biggest safety issue with hydrogen would be how cold liquid hydrogen is.
Yup hydrogen is quite flammable. What's worse, the technology is still kind of crap. The cars are not ideal for cold weather operation (Yes, hydrogen hates Canada.) Also refining hydrogen is not an efficient process. The proponents of H fuel cells slam E85 for the lack of infrastructure for distribution, yet there are more changes needed for hydrogen than E85. A safer and more efficient alternative than hydrogen would be electric vehicles using the lithium titanate batteries from altair nano-tech. Fast recharge with out thermal overload. Billy 55 hydrogen ignites quite easily. Remember in highschool chemistry doing the expirement with zinc and hydrochloric acid? Put zinc in a test tube; add hydrochloric acid; put a balloon over the top of the testtube. Notice the bubbling action? See the balloon expanding? That's hydrogen gas. Put a candle near the balloon (it's soo much more dramatic in a darkened room). That flash isn't just the skin of the balloon. Hydrogen is easily combustible. QED
Hydrogen Fuel Cell Explosion
Hydrogen is highly combustable, but can be used under controlled conditions. Hydrogen and oxygen are the main liquid fuels used on the space shuttle and powered the Saturn V moon rockets. So to claim that hydrogen is not easily combustible really does mean that we didn't put a man on the moon and all shuttle launches are studio staged. There is some Hollywood movie propoganda that oxygen in itself is combustible - it isn't but it combines with the hydrogen to power the main shuttle engines. As for hydrogen not being explosive as with any highly combustable material, if it is stored under pressure and conditions are right, it can become explosive. The Hindenberg didn't explode due to the hydrogen, but I have exploded a serious number of tin cans and other engineered bits of metal in small scale rocket engine experiments - so now I make solid fuel engines and small scale gas turbines instead.

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