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Zero-emission mobility through an electric drive is possible with batteries or with fuel cells and hydrogen. Compared to the electric battery, the fuel cell unit has the advantage of higher energy density and that hydrogen fill times are short, according to the AVL list in your article.
This makes the fuel cell not only interesting for cars, but also for commercial vehicles, shipping, and railways. Different objectives apply depending on the area of application.
For cars, a high power density of 4 kW per liter is required, but a shorter lifespan of 5000 hours of operation. On the other hand, the specifications for the railway are 2 kW per liter and 30,000 hours of operation. This useful life is also expected for trucks.
In recent years, according to the AVL list, “the focus of developing fuel cell drive systems has shifted from the automobile to the application of commercial vehicles.” Reduce CO2 emissions by an average of 15 percent compared to 2019, by 30 percent since 2030. Exceeds are punished per gram of CO2 per ton-kilometer (tkm) with high fines of several thousand euros. This makes alternative solutions to the prevailing diesel engine indispensable.
Depending on the desired range, the truck fuel cell unit has great advantages over an electric battery: for example, it is not heavier than a current diesel unit. This means that the payload remains intact, which is generally very important for trucks. According to the AVL list, the fuel cell unit even has the potential to catch up to the diesel engine at total cost of ownership (TCO) if a hydrogen price of around € 4-5 / kg is achieved. Major improvements in fuel cells and cooling are still needed.
In the HYTRUCK project, AVL is currently developing a truck-optimized fuel cell system, which is also intended to alleviate the inherent conflict of objectives between high power density and service life.
Hyundai already has several generations of cars with serial fuel cell transmission. In addition to buses, trucks with this unit have also reached market maturity. The production of fuel cells for heavy vehicles is 190 kW, which is double the production of the Hyundai Nexo car with this unit. In South Korea, buses and trucks with fuel cell units are already on the way. Hyundai plans to deliver 1,600 fuel cell trucks to Switzerland by 2025.
Hydrogen could experience a rebirth in the internal combustion engine for several reasons, especially for commercial vehicles, where the focus is on costs:
- Hydrogen in the internal combustion engine is much faster and cheaper to use than in the fuel cell unit. This is especially true in countries where there is already a good one.
- Hydrogen infrastructure exists like Japan, Korea, and China.
- The hydrogen engine can use the same tank as a fuel cell unit, significantly reducing costs.
- In the internal combustion engine, hydrogen does not have to have the extremely high degree of purity that fuel cells have. This is particularly interesting when hydrogen is produced from biogenic sources (“green hydrogen”).
Two conferences at the symposium are dedicated to this topic: Bosch and the Institute of Internal Combustion and Thermodynamic Engines of the Graz University of Technology present a project. The focus is on a hydrogen engine for cars and light commercial vehicles.
The second lecture is from Keyou. The German company focuses on hydrogen actuation for commercial vehicles. The development is backed by an EU regulation: it defines a heavy commercial vehicle as emission-free if it emits less than 1 gram of CO2 / kWh with or without an internal combustion engine. Dipl.-Ing. Keyou’s Thomas Korn: “Of all the existing combustion concepts, hydrogen combustion engines will be the only ones that can meet these limits.”
Everyone agrees that by 2050 hydrogen must be CO2 neutral (“green hydrogen”) to meet climate targets. Today, hydrogen is still largely obtained from natural gas (“gray hydrogen”). Shell has so far lacked a specific hydrogen strategy in the EU.
Prof. Dr. wants more openness Robert Schlögl, from the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Energy Conversion in Mülheim an der Ruhr, discusses energy sources for future mobility. The current focus on battery electric mobility overlooks several facts:
- The worldwide availability of electricity. Even in Central Europe, given realistic economic conditions and social acceptance, the capacities of power plants could not replace even self-consumption of fossil energy with electricity.
- In the EU-28 alone, the transport sector’s oil requirements exceeded total electricity requirements in 2017. At the same time, electricity supply has been as constant as consumption for ten years, only energy sources have changed . Above all, there is more
- Wind power.
- Worldwide, there are currently two cars produced per second, a total of about 80 million a year. The total vehicle fleet worldwide is around two billion. Converting this to a new default technology takes time.
Here synthetic fuels can complement the electric drive approach. They are also very suitable as emergency storage for renewable electricity. Schlögl is convinced that in the future it will have to be imported at least as much as the current import of fossil energy. Shell is also convinced that the potential for local renewable electricity production in Europe will not be enough. Furthermore, this electricity could be produced much cheaper in the regions most suitable for this.
Hydrogen is the first fuel created in the synthetic fuel chain. Schlögl believes that building an energy system exclusively with hydrogen is not realistic. Synthetic fuels, which are synthesized from hydrogen and CO2 and are also called electronic fuels, are cheaper, less dangerous, and socially accepted as energy sources.
Synthetic fuels have another great advantage, explains emission expert Dr. E. Jacob. They are liquid and can be used in existing engines. These second generation electronic fuels allow a significant reduction in the complexity of the engine system and the subsequent treatment of exhaust gases. As an addition to fossil fuels, notable reductions in emissions and CO2 are already evident.
Although the overall efficiency of synthetic fuels is significantly poorer than direct electrification, they can be used in existing infrastructure and their potential is significantly greater than the global energy requirement. For reasons of energy self-sufficiency for mobility, China no longer relies solely on electric drives, but on the long term on methanol from coal and hydrogen as an energy source. Jacob: “The biggest challenge here is setting up production plants on a gigaton scale.”
(Red)
