At CES this previous week, the trucking startup Nikola confirmed off a hydrogen-fueled semi truck, considered one of its first ever constructed within the U.S. However the troubled firm with a convicted founder shouldn’t be the one participant nowadays seeing a promising future in fuel-cell fueled large rigs. Daimler Truck has additionally just lately introduced their GenH2 electrical semi. GenH2’s motors draw energy from a gas cell that runs on liquid hydrogen, and Daimler has stated the automobile will seem on German roads by mid-2024.
The corporate has entered agreements with a number of firms which have fleet operations within the German area, the place Daimler efficiently examined a GenH2 prototype on a monitor and on public roads. By way of these early highway exams, the corporate says they’ve discovered {that a} totally loaded GenH2 proved able to hauling its roughly 25-ton payload greater than 1,000 kilometers on a single fueling.
Below the Hood of the GenH2 Truck
The fuel-cell system of the GenH2 Truck, in response to the corporate, delivers 300 kilowatts. The truck additionally has a battery that may kick in an extra 400 kW in brief bursts for fast acceleration and hill climbing. The battery’s 70 kilowatt-hour storage capability could seem small, bu appears it’s adequate for recycling kinetic vitality that’s transformed to electrical cost through regenerative braking.
Daimler’s GenH2 Truck, in response to the corporate’s preliminary highway exams, can journey 1,000 km on a full tank of liquid hydrogen. Daimler Truck
Daimler, together with Linde and Air Liquide, the German and French multinational suppliers of commercial gases and hydrogen refueling companies, are making the most of advances in liquid hydrogen storage that yield notable benefits over utilizing pressurized gasoline.
In its liquified state, extra hydrogen might be carried per unit quantity in comparison with room-temperature H2, which is a gasoline. Consequently, vitality density is considerably increased, whereas smaller tanks on the automobile can nonetheless yield better vary than is feasible than gaseous hydrogen. That area financial savings and increase in vitality density let the truck haul an even bigger payload.
At specially-equipped liquid hydrogen filling stations in Wörth am Rhein and within the Duisburg space, cryogenic liquid hydrogen cooled to minus 253 levels Celsius might be pumped into two 44-kilogram chrome steel tanks mounted on both facet of a GenH2 semi’s chassis. Refueling might be accomplished inside 10 to fifteen minutes. In line with the corporate, high-efficiency insulation on the tanks preserve the hydrogen under its ultra-low boiling level with out energetic cooling.
“We’re additionally proud to be offering Daimler Truck with a few of the vital refueling infrastructure and hydrogen as a part of the trials,” says Caroline Stancell, Basic Supervisor (Europe and Africa area) of the Hydrogen for Mobility division at Air Merchandise, a U.S.-based industrial gasoline provider collaborating within the venture. “Our newest cellular fueling station for liquid hydrogen might be used for the venture within the Duisburg space and may due to this fact function beneath actual situations.”
Daimler Truck’s Subsequent Steps
Because it has accomplished previously with security applied sciences it has spearheaded, Daimler has made the recipe for liquid hydrogen (LH2) publicly accessible. It’s now an ISO commonplace. What’s extra, the automaker plans to work instantly with different firms to assist them develop their very own liquid hydrogen refueling and gas cell automobile applied sciences. The goal, Daimler stated in a press launch, is to “set up a world mass marketplace for the brand new refueling course of.”
Daimler Truck is already at work with Linde on one other new course of for dealing with hydrogen cooled to the tremendous low temperatures at which it takes the type of a liquid. The automaker says that course of will yield even increased storage (and thus vitality) density with simpler refueling in contrast with the LH2 course of.
Daimler is laying the groundwork for making hydrogen a extra broadly accessible automotive vitality modality. The corporate says it’s also planning to work along with Shell, BP, and TotalEnergies to construct out hydrogen refueling infrastructure for main transport routes in Europe.
Pricing particulars on the GenH2 Truck have been unavailable at presstime. For comparability, Fleet Proprietor journal estimates a Nikola fuel-cell semi prices roughly $750,000—though Fleet Proprietor provides that incentives from the U.S. Inflation Discount Act and California HVIP grants might, for some homeowners, minimize the fee again by $40,000 and $288,000, respectively.
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