Massive Heavy-duty Hydrogen Vehicles To Undergo Pricy
Argonne National Laboratory is spending the money needed for a new research and development facility
With the assistance of US Department of Energy (DoE) funding, the Argonne National Laboratory intends to build a new research and development facility for the independent testing of heavy-duty hydrogen vehicles. It will be used for testing large-scale H2 systems for both heavy-duty and off-road applications.
The aim is to obtain useful insight into H2 fuel systems
The DoE is helping to fund the project due to the substantial experience the Argonne National Laboratory has into fuel cells. It has been researching this type of technology since 1996. This will allow it to bring its insight into the tech behind hydrogen vehicles.
In particular, it will be evaluating new fuel cell systems using polymer electrolyte membranes (PEM) ranging from 150 to 600 kilowatts for their use within industrial machinery and stationary power generation units.
Looking at the future of hydrogen vehicles
The new facility for testing hydrogen vehicles will work to examine the feasibility and drawbacks of using H2 as a clean fuel for transportation applications, such as in heavy-duty trucks, marine vessels, locomotives, and heavy machinery used in construction, mining, and agriculture.
“The facility will serve as a national resource for analysis and testing of heavy-duty fuel cell systems for developers, technology integrators and end-users in heavy-duty transportation applications,” said Argonne H2 and fuel cell program laboratory relationship manager Ted Krause. This will extend to applications including marine shipping, trains, heavy-duty vehicles, aircraft, and others.
Krause explained that by using the newly built testing infrastructure, the lab will be able to support the advancement of hydrogen vehicles in terms of their fuel cell performance, while laying the path toward the integration of this clean energy into the various aforementioned applications.
Support from the DoE
The facility for testing the hydrogen vehicles will be receiving around $4 million from the DoE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and renewable Energy’s Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technologies Office (HFTO). The new H2 research and development facility at Argonne National Laboratory is slated to become operational in the second half of this year.
