Four-year-old Andrew Schafer made his way into his dad’s shop, determined to find the correct tools for the job. Moments later his parents found their treadmill taken apart, large metal pieces and bolts laid around Schafer as he continued to investigate this piece of equipment.
A young Asher Holden was similarly taking apart battery-controlled cars and attempting to put them back together in his hometown of Spokane, Washington. His parents would often stock up on tinker toys, Lincoln Logs , and old radios for disassembling to feed his curious mind. It was the origin story of how two future Vandals developed an urge to figure out how things worked.
The Hydrogen Production and Combustion Club was started by Schafer and Holden, both mechanical engineering freshmen, with the quest of creating a fully hydrogen-powered engine. The idea was developed after Schafer gave a speech in a communications course about his interest in hydrogen engines. Holden approached him with the idea of creating their own model for a chemistry project which would eventually develop into the plan of forming a club together. Since then, students across several different majors have joined in on this opportunity.
“I enjoy computer-aided design and had been wanting to make a transmission for something,” Schafer said. “I told myself, ‘If we have an engine, we can make a transmission,’ so that’s a large motivation behind all of this. We’ve also seen that Toyota and Mazda have an engine like this and think it’ll be something up and coming.”
A traditional internal combustion engine uses gasoline as fuel, whereas a hydrogen engine would rely on liquid hydrogen. Other types of powered engines include gasoline, diesel, natural gas, propane, biodiesel , and ethanol. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, these fuels can also be combined with hybrid-electric powertrains to increase fuel economy or plug-in hybrid electric systems to extend the range of hybrid electric vehicles.
Both Mazda and Toyota’s websites state their hydrogen-powered vehicles create zero emissions, creating an awareness of clean fuel and environmentally friendly options.
The club’s goal is to harvest the fuel from water, but they found it difficult to separate the hydrogen from the water. Their next attempt will include a small compressor to compress the hydrogen and successfully store it. Once this process is completed, a design for engine build will be the next step.
Since the club is not an official organization through the university, there is no current funding for it. The members must be resourceful using their own funds and even repurposing soda bottles into their experiments.
“We’ve been chipping in our personal income and buying materials at Ace Hardware or Goodwill,” Holden said. “We actually got a great container there but the best resource on hand is the 3D printer here at the library.”
However, the printer has a tough time developing a divider for the electrodes; the divider itself would fit into the fuel cell container to keep both gases separate and stable. A fuel cell container is a device that chemically converts the fuel into electricity without the need to burn it or the need to recharge.
According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency, there are some manufacturers who are selling Hydrogen Fuel Cell Vehicles, most notably in California where some hydrogen fueling stations exist.
“We believe it’s going to be the entire future and it’s far more sustainable than what the media says about electric cars,” Holden said. “The only emissions are water and heat when hydrogen combusts with oxygen. It’s our best shot at a greener, better future. In theory, this could be significantly better than electric vehicles.” .”
While this is just the start of the Hydrogen Club, the members are planning to use engine development as their senior year capstone project. By then, they hope to be an official club with access to grants and funding to utilize towards a small car that runs on hydrogen.