HYSYDAYS
1st World Congress of Young Scientists on Hydrogen Energy Systems
1st World Congress of Young Scientists on Hydrogen Energy Systems
ISBN Print: 1-56700-230-7
DEVELOPMENT OF A FUEL CELL HYBRID SCOOTER EQUIPPED WITH AN INTEGRATED METAL HYDRIDE TANK
DOI: 10.1615/HYSYDAYS2005.600
pages 405-407
Abstract
Hydrogen powered vehicles based on fuel cells are considered
one of the possible solutions, the most promising, to the current
mobility problems. Especially in urban environments the need
of silent, non-pollutant, high efficient vehicles is becoming
greater and greater. One of the possible solutions is a fuel cell
based scooter coupling the advantages of individual mobility
(flexibility, efficiency, etc.) and hydrogen technologies
(environmental impact, sustainability, efficiency, etc.). The
paper describes the design and manufacturing of a fuel cell
scooter. The proposed solution is based on hybrid architecture:
the fuel cell (200 W, 20 cells) works in parallel with a battery
pack (7.2 Ah). The parallel operation is based on a DC/DC
converter used to boost and stabilise the fuel cell voltage at the
battery level: the fuel cell starts to work as soon as the battery
pack voltage became lower than a fixed value. The hydrogen
storage is made trough the use of a hydride vessel (50 Nliters)
allowing more than one hour of operation in maximum
acceleration mode. The thermal energy co generated by the fuel
cell is used to warm the vessel in order to optimise the
hydrogen desorbtion. The air supply system consists in a blower allocated directly on the fuel cell and it is controlled by
the motor power request. The scooter is currently under test at
the Hydrogen System Laboratory either in outdoor and indoor
applications. Considering the way to hydrogen society, the
proposed scooter can be an important step also in terms of
public acceptance.