The average American consumer expects to drive more than 300 miles before refueling, said Matt McCluskey, acting chairman of the Washington State University Physics and Astronomy department. Although the use of hydrogen fuel would eliminate vehicle gas emissions and slow down global warming, that technology will not be commercially successful if it cannot efficiently power vehicles for long road trips.

"Many people consider the inability to effectively store hydrogen the next serious limitation to enabling the hydrogen economy," said Grant Norton, associate dean of the School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering.

Throughout the past decade, professors Norton and McCluskey have been researching methods to store hydrogen to make it a viable alternative for automobile energy.

RESEARCH

In 2001, Norton, along with University of Idaho physics professor David McIlroy, were the first scientists to create nanosprings.

A nanospring is a wire made of silicon oxide, which contains the same chemical properties as sand, Norton said. Each wire is one billionth of a meter wide, or 10,000 times narrower than a human hair.

For storing hydrogen, a standard tank is too bulky to hold large volumes of hydrogen. It is also unsafe because hydrogen is very flammable and could explode in high temperatures.

Norton's proposed solution is to load the automobile with nanosprings. When hydrogen is fueled into the vehicles, hydrogen atoms would stick to the outside of the nanosprings, thus storing the energy.

When a driver hits the accelerator, the engine will heat up, which releases the hydrogen atoms from the springs and causes the vehicle to move.

"You could literally have trillions and trillions of these springs," Norton said.

He said part of the challenge is to construct the system so the engine doesn't need to get too cold for the hydrogen atoms to attach to the wires, or too hot for the atoms to be released. Extreme temperatures would affect the safety of the vehicle in different environments. Long waiting periods for the engine to heat up slow the acceleration.

For the production of nanosprings, Norton and McIlroy were offered an approximately $900,000 grant from the W.M. Keck Foundation, one of the nation's largest philanthropic organizations.

"If we had not made the nanosprings in the quantity that we can, then we never would have been able to propose it as a viable technology," McIlroy said.

McCluskey's research is similar in many fashions to Norton's and McIlroy's, but involves a different nanomaterial for storing hydrogen.

In a collaboration with professors from the University of Georgia and the University of Santa Cruz, McCluskey is experimenting with metal hydride.

Metal hydride is similar to nanosprings when the hydrogen is compressed by its interaction with the metal. But the hydrogen atoms compound with the metal to form metal hydride -- therefore storing the hydrogen inside the metal. The metals are straight rods, different from the curvy shape of the nanosprings.

The physics of a car's operation is the same -- when the engine heats up, hydrogen atoms should be released from the atoms to jump-start the vehicle.

WHAT THE FUTURE HOLDS

In the past decade, 17 countries have announced national programs to develop hydrogen energy, according to the September issue of "Scientific American." In North America, more than 30 states and several Canadian provinces are developing similar plans, although the U.S. has not implemented a national program.

Another issue with hydrogen protection has been the use of gas emissions required to produce the fuels, McCluskey said. To reduce emissions, other alternative sources, such as solar cells and wind turbines, need to be mass-produced to provide the energy.

The price of hydrogen is also an issue, Norton said. But like any technology, as more hydrogen fuel is produced, the prices will drop over time.

Still, the day when hydrogen fuel becomes commercially accessible is still years away, McCluskey said. It may also be years until it is concluded whether nanosprings or metal hydride, or a different material, is the correct solution.

"[Our research] is highly speculative, but worth looking into," he said. "In five years, we will likely either see a great breakthrough or the project could fizzle.