Volvo trialling new fuel cells with Hydrogen powered trucks

Patriot

Patriot

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Chatty

Chatty

Well-Known Member
Toyauto have long said that they see hydrogen (as fuel cells or as a liquid fuel) being the way of the future, which is why they have put limited investment into full electric vehicles.

I believe that the infrastructure to store hydrogen as ammonia (NH3), ship it, store it and then reconvert it to hydrogen for vehicle fuelling is essentially compatible with what is used for petrol and diesel. It just needs a couple of black boxes at each end...
 
M

melveee

Active Member
Chatty said:
Toyauto have long said that they see hydrogen (as fuel cells or as a liquid fuel) being the way of the future, which is why they have put limited investment into full electric vehicles.

I believe that the infrastructure to store hydrogen as ammonia (NH3), ship it, store it and then reconvert it to hydrogen for vehicle fuelling is essentially compatible with what is used for petrol and diesel. It just needs a couple of black boxes at each end.
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I think they will just get the hydrogen by splitting water using electrolysis. So as long as you have a water supply and electricity supply, you pretty much have unlimited hydrogen.
 
Albynsw

Albynsw

Well-Known Member
I don’t know much about hydrogen setups
Do they refill your vehicles cylinder or is it a replacement fuel cell?
 
linuxfan66

linuxfan66

Active Member
one downside. most hydrogen is made by processing methane in a process that would be more efficient and enviromentally friendly if you just burned the methane directly. blue hydrogen is clean. however its not the norm yet. also it does result in cleaner air in cities and quieter vehicles. so is an upside to using it to be fair. gives and takes i guess
 
shaun0

shaun0

Well-Known Member
Chatty said:
Toyauto have long said that they see hydrogen (as fuel cells or as a liquid fuel) being the way of the future, which is why they have put limited investment into full electric vehicles.

I believe that the infrastructure to store hydrogen as ammonia (NH3), ship it, store it and then reconvert it to hydrogen for vehicle fuelling is essentially compatible with what is used for petrol and diesel. It just needs a couple of black boxes at each end...
Click to expand...

Twiggy Forest said he has one his Iron Ore ships setup to run on Ammonia or something like that anyway
 
stevemc181

stevemc181

Well-Known Member
We’ve recently supplied a lot of gear for a new Hydrogen commercial demonstration plant that is currently being constructed in WA. This plant uses what is called the Hazer process to produce Hydogen from Bio-Gas (Methane) using iron ore as a process catalyst. The process produces much cleaner hydrogen along with high quality graphite.
Some big potential here for a much cleaner/cheaper way of producing hydrogen. There is a lot of worldwide interest in this process, hopefully the demonstration plant performs as expected.

About | hazergroup.com.au

hazergroup.com.au hazergroup.com.au
 
shanegtr

shanegtr

Well-Known Member
linuxfan66 said:
one downside. most hydrogen is made by processing methane in a process that would be more efficient and enviromentally friendly if you just burned the methane directly. blue hydrogen is clean. however its not the norm yet. also it does result in cleaner air in cities and quieter vehicles. so is an upside to using it to be fair. gives and takes i guess
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Thats the current process, but moving forward it needs to be produced cleanly with renewables to have any benefit, but that step is coming.
 
Chatty

Chatty

Well-Known Member
melveee said:
I think they will just get the hydrogen by splitting water using electrolysis. So as long as you have a water supply and electricity supply, you pretty much have unlimited hydrogen.
Click to expand...
Making hydrogen at a local level isn't economic (or environmentally friendly) - it will rely on larger centralised hydrogen plants running off green energy (wind/solar/pixie dust) to produce bulk hydrogen. The problem with bulk hydrogen is transporting it safely.
I once built a major factory that used a lot of bulk hydrogen - the explosive potential of the bulk tankers was scary.
 
Chatty

Chatty

Well-Known Member
shaun0 said:
Twiggy Forest said he has one his Iron Ore ships setup to run on Ammonia or something like that anyway
Click to expand...
That could well be correct - I'm not sure the ammonia-to-hydrogen conversion is something that would be feasible at a car/truck size though.
 
Chatty

Chatty

Well-Known Member
Albynsw said:
I don’t know much about hydrogen setups
Do they refill your vehicles cylinder or is it a replacement fuel cell?
Click to expand...
I think that Toyauto (and others) are aiming for a system that mimics the current fuelling regime as closely as possible - transport bulk fuel around as a liquid, store it in tanks on site, stick a nozzle into a vehicle, pump the fuel from the storage tank to the vehicle tank.
This is the system for petrol, diesel and LPG.

I think that this option is what has the best chance of widespread consumer uptake compared to the perceived difficulties of charging all-electric vehicles.
 
peterfermtech

peterfermtech

Well-Known Member
Simple maths. If it takes 30 min. to charge an electric vehicle cw 3 minutes to refuel that a factor of 10 times more "service stations"
 
Chatty

Chatty

Well-Known Member
peterfermtech said:
Simple maths. If it takes 30 min. to charge an electric vehicle cw 3 minutes to refuel that a factor of 10 times more "service stations"
Click to expand...
I think if you're looking at replacement EVs for our 4WDs, the charge time might be more like 60 or 90 minutes.
This was always going to be the fundamental issue with EVs in "outback" Australia - it's ok in the cities and town to put charge points in carparks and kerbside, where people can charge for an hour or two while they sightsee or shop.
But when you get into the red dirt country, where it's hundreds of kilometres between roadhouses, the idea of of forty or fifty 4WDs plugged in at a roadhouse to recharge for two hours is just ludicrous.
 
Chatty

Chatty

Well-Known Member
Albynsw said:
I can’t help but think EV will fall by the wayside as these style of technology develop
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Everybody knows I'm no fan of Toyauto, but their success can't be argued with, and if they're betting their money on hydrogen technology then you'd be a fool to not pay attention.

Having said that, I think there's a place for both EVs and hydrogen fuelled vehicles and I won't be surprised if our future vehicle fleet is a mixture. EVs are good choice for those people who spend all their time in the city, or travelling well-trodden routes like the Princes and Hume Highways, where the charging infrastructure can be economic.
 
G_ute

G_ute

Well-Known Member
Chatty said:
That could well be correct - I'm not sure the ammonia-to-hydrogen conversion is something that would be feasible at a car/truck size though.
Click to expand...

Perhaps this.
Also mentions fuel-cell use in submarines - alternative to nuclear subs for us?

 
Chatty

Chatty

Well-Known Member
G_ute said:
Perhaps this.
Also mentions fuel-cell use in submarines - alternative to nuclear subs for us?
Click to expand...
I think the problem will be the maturity of the technology and energy density. This system will need some runs on the board first, before going into subs. But it could be very promising.

Diesel engines, batteries and electric motors had been around for a while before their first use in subs in WW1.

Nuclear power had been around for a while before its use in the Nautilus (submarine) in 1954 - although considering that nuclear energy wasn't a "thing" prior to 1945, that's pretty quick adoption, given the design-build time frame for a sub.
 
discomatt

discomatt

Well-Known Member
wasn't there a hydrogen powered truck in the Dakar this year? I know there was a full electric Audi and am sure I saw a alternative energy truck, the commentators were saying we need to get used to the silence of modern race cars because they are the future
 
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