Context: The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways has notified the use of Hydrogen as an automotive fuel in the country. It has notified an 18% blend of Hydrogen with CNG.

About HCNG

• HCNG stands for Hydrogen-enriched Compressed Natural Gas. HCNG is produced by blending hydrogen with CNG. 
• It can be used in place of gasoline, diesel fuel/LPG and its combustion produce fewer undesirable gases in comparison to normal automobile fuel.

Key benefits of HCNG

The most important benefit of HCNG are:

• It emits 70% less carbon monoxide
• reduces total hydrocarbons emissions by around 15% 
• increases fuel efficiency by 3-4%
• The power output of HCNG is better than CNG
• HCNG is easier and safer to use than hydrogen as it contains very low energy content from hydrogen, i.e., up to 30% by volume.

Key concerns associated with HCNG

• The physical blending of CNG and hydrogen involves a series of energy-intensive steps that would make H-CNG more expensive than CNG.
• Need a change in the structural aspects of the engine and creation of new infrastructure for preparing HCNG.
• Determining the most optimised H2/ NG (Natural Gas) ratio.