Volkswagen Shows Off Advanced Fuels Vehicles

Volkswagen of America is showing off advanced fuels models of some VW cars at the Designing Sustainable Mobility Summit, being held at Art Center College of Design in Southern California.

Summit attendees and Art Center students are being provided the experience of driving VW models running on biodiesel, ultra low sulfur diesel, hydrogen, and highly efficient gasoline engines on public roads.

"It's important to demonstrate that raising the bar in such important areas as fuel efficiency and emissions reduction isn't just accomplished with exotic or future-oriented technologies," says Ron Cogan, editor and publisher of the Green Car Journal, which is hosting the summit's ride-and-drive. "Volkswagen's demonstration of its clean diesel and twincharger engines provides real-world examples of environmentally positive technologies that are operating on highways today."

At the event's Green Cars/Pasadena ride-and-drive, VW is fielding a Touareg V-10 TDI running on B5 biodiesel, a mixture of conventional ultralow sulfur diesel (ULSD) fuel and renewable biodiesel. Diesel fuel that includes a mix of biodiesel burns cleaner and also helps displace fossil fuel use, contributing to energy diversity. VW has extended warranty protection to its models operating on B5 biodiesel as a way to encourage use of this cleaner fuel.

An advance look is also being offered of a highly efficient, twincharger gasoline engine Jetta in development. This Jetta's TSI engine provides higher power output from a smaller displacement engine while also achieving greater fuel efficiency and lower emissions. The TSI is popular in Europe and now is being considered for use in the U.S. It uses asupercharger to provide engine boost at lower rpms and an exhaust-driven turbocharger at mid-range rpms and higher.

At the summit, VW's Touran HyMotion hydrogen fuel cell vehicle not only shows Volkswagen's interest in this zero-emission fuel, but also showcases the company's breakthrough high-temperature fuel cell.

A decade of VW hydrogen vehicle development has led to a high-temperature fuel cell that provides a more compact, lighter, and more durable fuel cell system. This technology holds great promise to make fuel cell powertrains more economical, key to future mass production, the automaker says.


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Sandia, Boeing Collaborate on Hydrogen Aircraft Project

Sandia National Laboratories and the Boeing Corporation will collaborate on a project to investigate hydrogen aircraft technology, specifically a hydrogen-powered fuel cell for providing emergency power to aircraft.

Fuel cells are touted as emission-free and more friendly to the environment and a popular way to deal with climate change if they burn hydrogen but hydrogen must be extracted from water trough electrolysis.

The work will be conducted under an existing umbrella Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) signed in 2002.

Boeing is the largest aerospace company in the world and the United States’ leading exporter. It is NASA’s largest contractor and the largest manufacturer of commercial jetliners and military aircraft. Boeing is also home to the Boeing Phantom Works advanced R&D unit.

Sandia is a major Department of Energy lab. Sandia has major R&D responsibilities in national security, energy and environmental technologies, and economic competitiveness.


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Hydrogen-Powered Lawnmowers?

In a breakthrough that could make fuel cells practical for such small machines as lawnmowers and chainsaws, researchers have developed a new mechanism to efficiently control hydrogen fuel cell power.


Many standard fuel cell designs use electronics to control power output, but such designs require complex systems to manage humidity and fuel recovery and recycling systems to achieve acceptable efficiency.


The new process controls the hydrogen feed to match the required power output, just as one controls the feed of gasoline into an internal combustion engine. The system functions as a closed system that uses the waste water to regulate the size of the reaction chamber, the site where the gasses combine to form water, heat and electricity.


National Science Foundation (NSF) awardee Jay Benziger of Princeton University developed the new technique with his student Claire Woo, a recipient of an NSF Research Experiences for Undergraduates award and now a doctoral candidate at the University of California, Berkeley. Woo and Benziger published their findings in the February Chemical Engineering Science, now available online.


The researchers believe the first applications for their technology will be in smaller engines. Fuel cells are currently inefficient on such scales due to the need for fuel recycling and excess hydrogen in standard designs. The researchers' new design is closed, so 100 percent of the fuel is used and there is no need for a costly fuel recycling system.


"The system is ideal for small internal combustion engines that lack emissions controls and are highly polluting," says Benziger. "There is also no need for an extensive hydrogen distribution system for these small motors; the hydrogen could be supplied in returnable tanks such as the propane tanks used for gas grills."


Benziger's next goal is to connect several of the new fuel cells together to increase power, a system that could potentially compete with cells now being tested in the automotive industry.





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Automaker Produces 1st Fuel Cell Firefighter Vehicle

DaimlerChrysler has introduced what the automaker calls the first fuel cell-powered fire response vehicle. The Sacramento Metropolitan Fire District will operate the Mercedes-Benz F-Cell as a supervisor's vehicle in the Sacramento, Calif., area.

Fuel cells release energy from the reaction of hydrogen with a catalyst and oxygen. This clean technology operates at a high level of efficiency and is true zero-emissions. Hydrogen-powered fuel cell vehicles emit only pure water vapor as exhaust. The U.S. federal government is pursuing research to replace gasoline-powered cars with fuel cell vehicles and create a "hydrogen economy."

Outfitted with decals, lights, sirens and a coat of bright red paint, the Fire Service Mercedes-Benz F-Cell is a look into the future use of fuel cell vehicles. The demanding operation of the vehicle will produce valuable data to help develop fuel cell technology, DaimlerChrysler says. The new fire response F-Cell joins the first fuel cell powered police car, also built by DaimlerChrysler, which operates in Michigan with the Wayne State University Police Department. These two vehicles are the first hydrogen fuel cell powered emergency response vehicles in the world, the automaker says.

"This program exhibits how DaimlerChrysler is taking on the challenge for industries and governments to create viable alternative-fuel solutions," says Mark Chernoby, vice president - advance vehicle engineering, Chrysler Group. "We're pleased to be a driving force in this team effort to develop zero-emissions transportation."

The Fire Service Mercedes-Benz F-Cell will be refueled at a BP Energy hydrogen refueling station located at the California Fuel Cell Partnership. Delivering hydrogen fuel cell vehicle experience to the fire service, the F-Cell contributes to the development of appropriate solutions for hydrogen transportation safety.

DaimlerChrysler says it has spent more than $1 billion in fuel cell vehicle research and development. No other manufacturer has accumulated more data or driven more zero-emissions miles -- almost 2 million, the company adds.

The DaimlerChrysler fuel cell vehicle fleet is diverse -- in addition to several research vehicles, it also includes medium-duty fuel cell Dodge Sprinter vans and more than 35 Mercedes-Benz Citaro fuel cell buses, which operate in Europe, the United States, Japan, Australia and Singapore. As part of the world's largest fleet of fuel cell vehicles, DaimlerChrysler has 32 fuel cell vehicles in customer hands within the United States and more than 100 around the world.

The Mercedes-Benz F-Cell is a reflection of DaimlerChrysler's leadership in fuel cell technology, the company boasts. The entire fuel cell system is housed in the floor of the vehicle, leaving full use of the passenger and cargo spaces. It has a range of approximately 100 miles and a top speed of 85 mph. The electric motor develops 88 hp (65 kW), enabling acceleration from 0 to 60 mph in 16 seconds. The fuel cell stack has been developed by theDaimlerChrysler cooperation partner, Ballard Power Systems.


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