World’s first formic acid powered car uses Ant Venom as Fuel

Jan 30, 2016

Dutch student team of the University of Technology Eindhoven, Netherlands are building the world’s first car that uses formic acid, which is produced in nature by ants and other insects as hydrogen source to power car's electric motor. Consisting of 20 members, the students have the ambitious plan of building the worlds next generation of sustainable transportation.

The car, fueled by formic acid has shown the ability of storing hydrogen for fuel than existing electric powered or hydrogen cars thus showing much more benefits for consumers. It paves the way to do more research on combining both the electric and hydrogen powered cars.

The team is planning to build a formic acid powered bus in 2016, and by 2017 they plan to build a completely functional formic acid powered car. The plan is to put formic acid into the car in the exact same way as petrol and thus taking advantage of existing infrastructure, making such vehicles more affordable and competitive. Inside the car, the acid would be broken down into Carbon dioxide and hydrogen, and hydrogen will be used to power the car.

Hydrogen has yet to gain much traction as an alternative in the quest to move away from fossil fuel-powered cars. Using formic acid as a source of hydrogen would also offer a much greater range than current battery-powered electric vehicles. 

Source:http://www.forbes.com/sites/carmendrahl/2016/01/16/why-these-dutch-students-are-betting-on-ant-venom-as-auto-fuel