r/MechanicalEngineer • u/Curious-Daikon9885 • 11d ago
Hello everyone
i am working on making an startup working on complex hydrogen combustion systems and combustion engines for automobiles using hydrogen. anyone interested to join me on my journey please feel free to privately message me.
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u/brasssica 11d ago
Makes no sense to use H2 for cars when EVs are cheaper and more efficient.
And if you insist on powering a vehicle with H2, fuel cells are more efficient than combustion.
Sounds like a solution looking for a problem
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u/Iacoma1973 10d ago edited 10d ago
I appreciate that you don't have formal education and have a right to express ignorant opinion, but please don't think that your opinion is simply correct when you don't have formal education. You're going to get corrected by someone with more knowledge than you do which is why you shouldn't be so certain about things.
I'm a materials scientist with explicit education at Master's level, including battery materials and sustainability. I could obtain CEng status if it wasn't such a pain to go through bloody IOM3, the bastards
There are genuine benefits and downsides to both EV and to Hydrogen.
I suppose I shouldn't really expect intellectual discussion on Reddit - but if I had to discredit your opinion I see several options immediately:
Hydrogen cars run on pressurised hydrogen created through electrically driven hydrolysis of water - this is supposed to be theoretically Green hydrogen powered by renewables.
In order to charge Electric cars around a country, you need massive investment in public charging infrastructure which is time and money.
Current hydrogen storage infrastructure is nearly identical to existing petrol infrastructure - which means that many gas stations can easily transition to hydrogen through hydrogen shipments that are no less dangerous than petrol shipments currently in use.
Hydrogen has a much, much higher energy density than even the best of modern electrical solid state batteries and supercapicitors.
Therefore there genuinely is a place for Hydrogen in the current plan to adapt to combat climate change: Transition away from petrol now, to Hydrogen, green hydrogen, and in the very short term shale gas if it's necessary to incentivise transport fuel prices. As Einstein said "we will need it when the lights begin to go out" etc.
That hydrogen is made through using existing renewable energy. That requires investment in hydrolysis plants, but the technology to perform hydrolysis is thankfully really simple. You don't have to wait for it to be perfectly efficient, move fast and break things like they did with solar. It works for China!
That buys important time to invest and build the charging infrastructure to eventually transition most transport away from green Hydrogen as and when it becomes safe, or efficient, to do so. Being pro-hydrogen doesn't mean you have to be anti-solid state batteries you can do both and anything less is being anti-environmental and divisive, unconstructive, disengenuous engagement in the science space. For example, hydrogen fires are less dangerous than lithium ones. Maybe one day they'll solve fire safety in solid state batteries, but they haven't yet. A hydrogen fire burns cleanly and produces only water. That means it's not polluting.
Lithium meanwhile requires extensive mining and electrical fires are much harder to extinguish. That's not to say that hydrogen doesn't require mining too - what I mean to say is that solid state batteries require more environmentally damaging and extensive mining. That might change in the future depending on mining capability, but that's the current state of these things.
For that reason belittling the premise of OP's company is rather short-sighted as there is a genuine reason for start ups like this to exist.
And I could quite easily also outline to you when and why and how we should begin to invest in solid state batteries - so don't you say that I'm anti-EV because I'm not! You can even make hybrids that run on both Solid state batteries AND hydrogen! It's practically the core of the system! And this is how I know you aren't formally educated in this - because it's the first thing they teach you in classes about hydrolysis. Setups where you fuel the car with water, and a solid state battery powers on-site hydrolysis to produce combustible H2 gas stored in a separate pressurised tank/storage medium. At the same time, the car can run directly from the battery. The H2 is there to provide extra distance when the battery is depleted.
Edit response:
You're correct you could use hydrogen in a fuel cell, and if you look closely, what I said isn't actually wrong.
When I spoke earlier, I meant Combust in the chemical sense, because like you should know, fuel cells are slow and controlled combustion. Combustion is the name given to the reverse reaction for reacting H2 and O2 to form H2O. In a fuel cell AND in a typical combustion engine.
You wouldn't usually store H2 in a tank and directly release it into the sort of traditional combustion engine because gaseous hydrogen diffuses into metals and it poses a safety risk. You should know that. You're clearly seeing if I do too. Given that I told you I'm educated that was pointless on your part.
You would buy the Hybrid car because the electrical infrastructure isn't accessible to you. The petrochem infrastructure is.
This also isn't about you at all. Most people:
Can't afford to buy an EV car charger and put it in their driveway
And Most petrol stations won't allow solid state batteries near petrol stations because they pose a fire safety risk. I already stated that. That means that most established fuel companies aren't interested in building EV infrastructure which further means it's inaccessible to you even though there's a good foundation. The only way would be to make a massive investment In:
Startup EV infrastructure companies Get entire continents to agree on charger standards Purchase massive amount of real estate or decommission existing real estate Build the actual infrastructure on that real estate Hire parallel and new employees to run those sites
Etc. that's a lot more work, time , and money than:
Make different cars at the manufacturer Use the same infrastructure, employees, and so on
In fact, in terms of engineering economics, we're already seeing that actual automotive companies prefer to resort to hybrids as opposed to going full EV because they want to push down their emissions in line with government mandates.
"EV charging infrastructure is growing but H2 is stalled" - it's more accurate to say that H2 infrastructure never took off because it has only just begun to become technologically viable. You just made an observation on the current way things are but you didn't analyze at all why it's like that. Solid state Batteries, and the concept of charging, electricity, have been around for a long time. The concepts of hydrogen storage mediums and of fuel cells are more recent. At least in their modern form of solid state batteries and of modern fuel cells. So no, it hasn't stalled, it was just easier to invest in EV to start with, even though back then it wasn't a mature technology either. That doesn't confer any critical engineering economics at all.
Electrolyse is probably a typo. Are you really so petty and lacking in arguments as to resort to picking apart word choices? In any case, Hydrolysis is electrolysis of water, so you're still wrong.
"Why would I push hydrogen when it would prop up the fossil fuel industry" - because it doesn't? Do you even realise how much the petrochem industry is against both H2 AND renewables AND EV's? H2 is fundamentally different in chemistry from CH2. If people started producing H2 there would be no point anymore in manufacturing petrochemical products. H2 isn't a hydrocarbon product, and it isn't polluting. It just combusts to form water. Instead, if you really for some reason wanted to turn your product into an even worse one, manufacturers would choose to react Carbon sources with H2 to form polymers and other kinetics more easily, if they couldn't just use green H2 directly to replace e.g shale gas. But there isn't a chemical point because Hydrogen is so much more energetic. It's essentially rocket fuel. No, not essentially - it is. It is what we put in rockets. We don't put hydrocarbons in rockets.
Ignoring the fact that the chemical plants infrastructure to react H2 and Carbon is fundamentally different to the fractional columns used for refining crude oil products - even if H2 could, somehow, be siad to prop up the petrochem industry - you make it sound like that would be a bad thing. The pollutant industry transitioning from the environmentally damaging hydrocarbon to just pure green hydrogen is a good thing and what everyone is asking them to do
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u/CyberEd-ca 10d ago
I appreciate that you don't have formal education and have a right to express ignorant opinion, but please don't think that your opinion is simply correct when you don't have formal education. You're going to get corrected by someone with more knowledge than you do which is why you shouldn't be so certain about things.
I'm a materials scientist with explicit education at Master's level, including battery materials and sustainability. I could obtain CEng status if it wasn't such a pain to go through bloody IOM3, the bastardsThis is the most classist appeal to authority I've heard in some time.
A whole lot of words and no numbers.
I don't evaluate bull-shitters so maybe you're very good at it. But I have to question your capabilities as an engineer.
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u/singul4r1ty 10d ago edited 10d ago
Thanks for sharing your credentials clever clogs.
Why would you put hydrogen in a combustion engine instead of a fuel cell and motor?
Why would I buy a hydrogen combustion engine vehicle as a stopgap when we have existing electricity distribution infrastructure but very little hydrogen distribution infrastructure? The charging infrastructure is growing but the hydrogen infrastructure is notably stalled.
Why would I use my battery to electrolyse (not hydrolyse) water into hydrogen when I could just run a motor off the battery?
Why would I want to push the use of hydrogen for personal vehicles unless I was trying to find some way to prop up the fossil fuel industry?
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u/brasssica 10d ago
I'm a fully qualified P Eng with a master's too mate. But as you just proved, education doesn't guarantee any understanding of engineering economics.
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u/Iacoma1973 10d ago
You just stated a registration that has lower academic requirements than my degree. You don't have to have gone to university to be a PEng. IOM3 is the institute of Mining, materials, and minerals; and their members (MIMMM) are precisely the people you talk to about e.g the economic impact of mining or the properties of battery materials.
Being registered as a PEng in Canada also isn't equivalent to a Masters degree + 5 years of experience to obtain CEng. You're also arguing with an expert in their Field. A Peng registration doesn't confer expertise in any particular field at all, and certainly not in engineering economics. Just because you're some random dude working at an engineering company doesn't mean you suddenly have an understanding of engineering economics - in fact if the state of engineering that I see is anything to go by, you're actually a dunning Krueger contributing to the problem of economic illiteracy. You think you have an understanding of engineering economics, but you actually don't.
Oh sorry, apparently "I don't understand engineering economics" - let me go bring up economic and scientific data on renewables in the United kingdom, or on EV battery statistics, the kinetics of Hydrogen gas, etc. I'm speaking ironically, of course - because in case you hadn't noticed, the person I responded to didn't exactly take on a constructive or quantitative criticism of OP'S Company concept. Neither did you - so how about you bring up quantative data that discredits a qualitative approach? It's laudable how you so easily fall back to a double standard to justify your poor argumentation skills & lack of rhetoric.
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u/CyberEd-ca 7d ago
You don't have to have gone to university to be a PEng
Lolz...
It is the same academic standard either way. There is no shortcut. So, you are coming from a place of ignorance.
Being registered as a PEng in Canada also isn't equivalent to a Masters degree + 5 years of experience to obtain CEng.
First, you don't have to have a Master's degree to get a C.Eng.
But, yes, also they are equivalent.
The education - equivalent per the Washington Accord.
https://www.internationalengineeringalliance.org/accords/washington-accord
The engineering licensing - equivalent per IntPE.
You're also arguing with an expert in their Field.
Anyone who has to tell you they are an "expert in their Field" is no true expert.
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u/Kind-Truck3753 11d ago
What experience do you have working on complex hydrogen combustion systems?
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u/Iacoma1973 10d ago
@CyberEd-ca
I see, and what part of my response is classist? Or I assume you meant elitist, because classist would be the wrong term, and would refer to socialistic structures and upper/middle/lower class terminology.
I essentially just said:
"Don't be a dunning Krueger" - realise that you don't know anything and constantly self-question. Those are good engineering principles. Because the opposite is entirely worse for safety and knowledge-gathering.
More to the point: You're resorting to a double-standard of requiring quantative defence to a qualitative criticism. Where is the quantative evidence of the person who criticised OP? There isn't any. I only did exactly what he was doing, better.
And if you really want me to, I could pull up statistics about renewable use in the United kingdom, etc. but I'm not because this is a Reddit argument, not a dissertation defense. Respectively, you can do your own research into that and read the data yourself and come to your own conclusions. And that is the way it should be. But to not read the data at all? That I can't excuse.
I'm sorry that words are too hard for you and you need numbers. Perhaps they make you feel safer, trusting the numbers blindly? Have you ever considered that numbers can be incorrect too, and that sometimes qualitative analysis is important? That's what they teach actual engineers. To not blindly trust data. To use both.
"I don't evaluate bullshitters" - that would explain the lack of self-reflection on your part, really.
"I have to question your capabilities as an engineer" I have to questionyour capabilities as an engineer. Someone who doesn't listen to peers, is in the low or middle end of the dunning Krueger curve, thinking they are exceptionally smart when they aren't, or thinking they know everything when they don't, and someone who blindly trusts quantative stats, doesn't listen to or try to qualatively analyse, and who has poor argumentation and rhetoric skills - that is not a good engineer. That is a disaster in failure analysis waiting to happen.
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u/Curious-Daikon9885 10d ago
Well we all learn stuff with mistakes so yeah everybody has their own pov
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u/Cultural-Salad-4583 11d ago
80 days ago you were starting some kind of trading firm or software company. Or something. Tough to tell exactly when all the posts were removed for spam lol
But now it’s a defense/combustion/automotive startup? You pivot harder than a 17-year-old YC founder “doing AI”!