You’re reading a story from Sidelines 100, a project showcasing a century of student storytelling at Middle Tennessee State University. Sidelines 100 plans to highlight 100 stories from the newspaper archives this fall and spring.
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The story has been updated for current basic AP style, but the wording in the story has not changed. Any ideas, perspectives or opinions do not necessarily reflect those of Sidelines.
MTSU professor Cliff Ricketts and his agriscience education students demonstrated Super M Farmall tractor they have modified to run of water on Friday, March 31, for MTSU students and interested faculty, and several high school classes at the Vocational Agriculture Building.
“The process works by converting solar energy into chemical energy which, through DC Motor, provides electrical energy,” an MTSU News Bureau press release stated. “Electrical energy powers an electrolysis unit which manufactures hydrogen from water. The hydrogen is ignited in the cylinder of the internal combustion engine, causing rotary motion, which powers the tractor.”
“The tractor project is part of the Department of Agriculture’s ongoing energy project,” Harley Foutch, department chairman, said. “The energy project has been going since the early 80’s. We have worked with alternate fuel sources before, like ethanol and methane, but work with water and hydrogen began two years ago.”
Foutch said that despite the engine’s lack of cost efficiency in this early stage of development, it represents an important step in engine development.
“Sixty percent of all pollution emitted into the atmosphere, some 125 million tons each year in the USA alone, come from internal combustion engines burning fossil fuels,” the department chairman said. “The hydrogen engine would represent a great improvement, it does not emit any of these pollutants,” he said.
Other research has been conducted in the area of hydrogen fuels, Foutch said, but MTSU’s research was significant.
“This is the first time a tractor, per sey, has even been successfully modified,” the department chairman said.
Funding for the project was financed through the Department of Agriculture, Foutch said.
“Dr. Ricketts is always on the lookout for funding from a private individual or company,” Foutch said, noting that there were limits to the project’s departmental funding.
“We’re very limited to what we can do without additional funds,” he said, adding that there were “few limits” on the possibilities for further research.
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