Driffield School’s Environment Day, “It’s a Gas”

Well heres a story to bring shock and horror, weve got people at the East Riding of Yorkshire Council who we pay to play with toy cars, no Im not joking, but dont worry its all in a good cause.

Councillor Symon Fraser found out about this at an environment day being run at Driffield School to which he was invited.

The students were all involved in exploring various topics of environmental interest, bin collection, recycling, green fuel suppliers, renewable energy and transport. It was in the discussions on transport that the toy car came into play.

Steve Hall one of the ERYC community composting team was using a toy car to demonstrate the potential use of hydrogen as a fuel for vehicles..it works like this.

An electrical current is passed through water in a closed container this releases hydrogen gas, this gas is collected and used to operate a fuel cell in the toy car. The Hydrogen gas reacts through an osmosis membrane with oxygen in the air to release an electrical current and this then powers the vehicle.

In this particular toy car scenario, because it was a dull rainy day the electricity to release the gas from the water was provided by a small battery, usually a small solar panel is used, the gas was then gathered using a syringe and this then used to fuel up the car. About 80ml of hydrogen gas powered our toy car across about five meters of carpeted floor.

Symon Fraser commented, The experiment I have to tell you resulted in the stunned silence of the group of pupils who once the car stopped then broke into a clamour of quite intense questioning. It really did get people talking about alternative fuels. So paying someone to play with toy cars is, in this case, money well spent, indeed I want that job.

The hydrogen car experiment was just one of many environmental topics explored by the students during the day long project other topics included an interview focussing on the role of local politics in recycling and waste.

16 June 2007