Possible Improvements
Compressed-air vehicles operate to a thermodynamic process as air cools down when expanding and heats up when being compressed. As it is not possible in practice to use a theoretically ideal process, losses occur and improvements may involve reducing these, e.g., by using large heat exchangers in order to use heat from the ambient air and at the same time provide air cooling in the passenger compartment. At the other end, the heat produced during compression can be stored in water systems, physical or chemical systems and reused later.
It may be possible to store compressed air at lower pressure using an absorption material within the tank. Absorption materials such as Activated carbon, or a metal organic framework is used to store compressed natural gas at 500 psi instead of 4500 psi, which amounts to a large energy saving.
Read more about this topic: Compressed-air Vehicle
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