Analysis on carbon emission reduction intensity of fuel cell vehicles from a life-cycle perspective

The hydrogen fuel cell vehicle is rapidly developing in China for carbon reduction and neutrality.This paper evaluated the life-cycle cost and carbon emission of hydrogen energy via lots of field surveys,including hydrogen production and packing in chlor-alkali plants,transport by tube trailers,storage and refueling in hydrogen refueling stations(HRSs),and application for use in two different cities.It also conducted a comparative study for battery electric vehicles(BEVs)and internal combustion engine vehicles(ICEVs).The result indicates that hydrogen fuel cell vehicle(FCV)has the best environmental performance but the highest energy cost.However,a sufficient hydrogen supply can significantly reduce the carbon intensity and FCV energy cost of the current system.The carbon emission for FCV application has the potential to decrease by 73.1%in City A and 43.8%in City B.It only takes 11.0%–20.1%of the BEV emission and 8.2%–9.8%of the ICEV emission.The cost of FCV driving can be reduced by 39.1%in City A.Further improvement can be obtained with an economical and“greener”hydrogen production pathway.

Energy Security Planning for Hydrogen Fuel Cell Vehicles in Large-Scale Events:A Case Study of Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics

Energy security planning is fundamental to safeguarding the traffic operation in large-scale events.To guarantee the promo-tion of green,zero-carbon,and environmental-friendly hydrogen fuel cell vehicles(HFCVs)in large-scale events,a five-stage planning method is proposed considering the demand and supply potential of hydrogen energy.Specifically,to meet the requirements of the large-scale events’demand,a new calculation approach is proposed to calculate the hydrogen amount and the distribution of hydrogen stations.In addition,energy supply is guaranteed from four aspects,namely hydrogen produc-tion,hydrogen storage,hydrogen delivery,and hydrogen refueling.The emergency plan is established based on the overall support plan,which can realize multi-dimensional energy security.Furthermore,the planning method is demonstrative as it powers the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics as the first“green”Olympic,providing both theoretical and practical evidence for the energy security planning of large-scale events.This study provides suggestions about ensuring the energy demand after the race,broadening the application scenarios,and accelerating the application of HFCVs.

Review of DC-DC Converter Topologies Based on Impedance Network with Wide Input Voltage Range and High Gain for Fuel Cell Vehicles

The development of fuel cell vehicles(FCVs)has a major impact on improving air quality and reducing other fossil-fuel-related problems.DC-DC boost converters with wide input voltage ranges and high gains are essential to fuel cells and DC buses in the powertrains of FCVs,helping to improve the low voltage of fuel cells and“soft”output characteristics.To build DC-DC converters with the desired performance,their topologies have been widely investigated and optimized.Aiming to obtain the optimal design of wide input range and high-gain DC-DC boost converter topologies for FCVs,a review of the research status of DC-DC boost converters based on an impedance network is presented.Additionally,an evaluation system for DC-DC topologies for FCVs is constructed,providing a reference for designing wide input range and high-gain boost converters.The evaluation system uses eight indexes to comprehensively evaluate the performance of DC-DC boost converters for FCVs.On this basis,issues about DC-DC converters for FCVs are discussed,and future research directions are proposed.The main future research directions of DC-DC converter for FCVs include utilizing a DC-DC converter to realize online monitoring of the water content in FCs and designing buck-boost DC-DC converters suitable for high-power commercial FCVs.

Abating transport GHG emissions by hydrogen fuel cell vehicles： Chances for the developing world

Fuel cell vehicles, as the most promising clean vehicle technology for the future, represent the major chances for the developing world to avoid high-carbon lock-in in the transportation sector. In this paper, by taking China as an example, the unique advantages for China to deploy fuel cell vehicles are reviewed. Subsequently, this paper analyzes the greenhouse gas （GHG） emissions from 19 fuel cell vehicle utilization pathways by using the life cycle assessment approach. The results show that with the current grid mix in China, hydrogen from water electro- lysis has the highest GHG emissions, at 3.10 kgCO2/km, while by-product hydrogen from the chlor-alkali industry has the lowest level, at 0.08 kgCO2/krn. Regarding hydrogen storage and transportation, a combination of gas-hydrogen road transportation and single compression in the refueling station has the lowest GHG emissions. Regarding vehicle operation, GHG emissions from indirect methanol fuel cell are proved to be lower than those from direct hydrogen fuel cells. It is recommended that although fuel cell vehicles are promising for the developing world in reducing GHG emissions, the vehicle technology and hydrogen production issues should be well addressed to ensure the life-cycle low-carbon performance.

Control and Communication Network in Hybrid Fuel Cell Vehicles

This paper describes the control and communication network in fuel cell vehicles, including both the protocol and the hardware. Based on the current protocol (ISO-11898 and SAE J1939), a new practical protocol is proposed and implemented for the control and communication network in fuel cell vehicles. To improve the re-liability of data communication and to unify the network management, a new network system based on dual-port RAM is also implemented.

Experimental Study on Hydrogen Leakage and Emission of Fuel Cell Vehicles in Confined Spaces

Hydrogen safety is one of the most important safety indicators in fuel cell vehicles(FCVs)(unlike in other types of alternative energy vehicles).This indicator in FCVs is directly related to the user’s personal safety in daily vehicle usage.This paper analyzes the safety standards of FCVs in confined spaces.A sealed test chamber and an appropriate test method are devel-oped to evaluate vehicle safety based on specific test requirements.Two FCVs are subjected to static hydrogen leakage and hydrogen emission testing performed in a confined space.The results reveal that the hydrogen concentration in the vicinity of the vehicles approximates 0.0004%which is much lower than 1%while parked for 8 h during the hydrogen leakage test.In the hydrogen emission test under operating conditions,the concentration of the hydrogen gas emitted from the vehicles exceeds 2300 ppm in the vicinity,which requires careful consideration.Based on experiment and analysis,recommendations for the hydrogen safety standards of FCVs in confined spaces are proposed.

Air-Side Fin Geometry of a Tube-Strip Heat Exchanger for Fuel Cell Vehicles

Fuel cell vehicles(FCVs)are facing severe heat dissipation challenges because fuel cell stacks are required to operate at a narrower temperature range and higher heat dissipation than those in the internal combustion engine.This study conducts a numerical analysis of a tube-strip heat exchanger applied in a high-performance FCV.The typical unit cell of the tube-strip heat exchanger is selected to numerically optimize the cell-level thermal performance of the heat exchanger.Effects of structural parameters and operational conditions are investigated.The optimal structure is obtained by focusing on the heat transfer rate and fan power at the air side,where the overall heat transfer rate of heat exchanger is determined by the effectiveness number of transfer unit method and the theoretical framework of volume averaging.The results show that the heat exchanger with rectangular fins exhibits a greater heat transfer rate than those with trapezoidal and triangular fins at an inlet air velocity of 4 m/s.Compared with the fin without a louver,the heat exchangers equipped with louvers parallel and vertical with the air flow achieve heat transfer rates of 33.1 and 42.8 kW,respectively,which increase by 2.0 kW(6.4%)and 11.7 kW(37.5%)in heat transfer rate.For high-power heat dissipation,the louvered heat exchanger with a fin pitch of 2 mm shows the best thermal performance given the same fan power.

Role of PV-Powered Vehicles in Low-Carbon Society and Some Approaches of High-Efficiency Solar Cell Modules for Cars

Development of highly-efficient photovoltaic (PV) modules and expanding its application fields are significant for the further development of PV technologies and realization of innovative green energy infrastructure based on PV. Especially, development of solar-powered vehicles as a new application is highly desired and very important for this end. This paper presents the impact of PV cell/module conversion efficiency on reduction in CO2 emission and increase in driving range of the electric based vehicles. Our studies show that the utilization of a highly-efficient (higher than 30%) PV module enables the solar-powered vehicle to drive 30 km/day without charging in the case of light weight cars with electric mileage of 17 km/kWh under solar irradiation of 3.7 kWh/m2/day, which means that the majority of the family cars in Japan can run only by the sunlight without supplying fossil fuels. Thus, it is essential to develop high-efficiency as well as low-cost solar cells and modules for automotive applications. The analytical results developed by the authors for conversion efficiency potential of various solar cells for choosing candidates of the PV modules for automotive applications are shown. Then we overview the conversion efficiency potential and recent progress of various Si tandem solar cells, such as III-V/Si, II-VI/Si, chalcopyrite/Si, and perovskite/Si tandem solar cells. The III-V/Si tandem solar cells are expected to have a high potential for various applications because of its high conversion efficiency of larger than 36% for dual-junction and 42% for triple-junction solar cells under 1-sun AM1.5 G illumination, lightweight and low-cost potentials. The analysis shows that III-V based multi-junction and Si based tandem solar cells are considered to be promising candidates for the automotive application. Finally, we report recent results for our 28.2% efficiency and Sharp’s 33% mechanically stacked InGaP/GaAs/Si triple-junction solar cell. In addition, new approaches which are suitable for automotive applications by using III-V triple-junction, and static low concentrator PV modules are also presented.

A Novel Method for the Application of the ECMS(Equivalent Consumption Minimization Strategy)to Reduce Hydrogen Consumption in Fuel Cell Hybrid Electric Vehicles

Fuel cell hybrid electric vehicles are currently being considered as ideal means to solve the energy crisis and global warming in today’s society.In this context,this paper proposes a method to solve the problem related to the dependence of the so-called optimal equivalent factor(determined in the framework of the equivalent consumption minimum strategy-ECMS)on the working conditions.The simulation results show that under typical conditions(some representative cities being considered),the proposed strategy can maintain the power balance;for different initial battery’s states of charge(SOC),after the SOC stabilizes,the fuel consumption is 5.25 L/100 km.

Function approximation reinforcement learning of energy management with the fuzzy REINFORCE for fuel cell hybrid electric vehicles

In the paper,a novel self-learning energy management strategy(EMS)is proposed for fuel cell hybrid electric vehicles(FCHEV)to achieve the hydrogen saving and maintain the battery operation.In the EMS,it is proposed to approximate the EMS policy function with fuzzy inference system(FIS)and learn the policy parameters through policy gradient reinforcement learning(PGRL).Thus,a so-called Fuzzy REINFORCE algorithm is first proposed and studied for EMS problem in the paper.Fuzzy REINFORCE is a model-free method that the EMS agent can learn itself through interactions with environment,which makes it independent of model accuracy,prior knowledge,and expert experience.Meanwhile,to stabilize the training process,a fuzzy baseline function is adopted to approximate the value function based on FIS without affecting the policy gradient direction.More-over,the drawbacks of traditional reinforcement learning such as high computation burden,long convergence time,can also be overcome.The effectiveness of the proposed methods were verified by Hardware-in-Loop ex-periments.The adaptability of the proposed method to the changes of driving conditions and system states is also verified.

Advancing green energy solution with the impetus of COVID-19 pandemic

The global energy system needs a revolutionary transition from today’s fossil fuel to a low carbon energy system by having deep carbonization in all energy demand sectors.Especially in the transport sector,fossil fuel-based vehicles contribute to a more massive amount of greenhouse gas emissions(GHG),mainly carbon dioxide(CO_(2))and particulate matter(PM2.5),affecting human health,society,and the climate system.Hydrogen and fuel cell technology is a promising low carbon transition pathway that supports GHG mitigation and achieves sustainable development.Although hydrogen and fuel cells are assuring,fuel cell vehicle expensiveness and the high cost of hydrogen production with the low carbon footprint are significant hindrances for its widespread deployment.Besides the situation above,the present corona virus(COVID-19)has devastated our global economy and ramps down the future of fossil fuel.It provides opportunities to rethink and reshape our energy system to a low carbon footprint.By utilizing the situation,governments and policymakers need to eliminate fossil fuel and invest in the hydrogen and fuel cell technologies deployment as future energy systems.This review article provides a technical overview of a low carbon energy system,production,and end-use service in a hydrogen economy perspective for developing a sustainable energy future.The techno-economic analysis of the different hydrogen production routines and fuel cell vehicles and their infrastructures are primarily focused.Finally,a long-term policy alignment was outlined to advance the hydrogen energy system for post-COVID-19 in the United Nation’s(UN)sustainable development goals framework.

Lightweight Design of Automobile Drive Shaft Based on the Characteristics of Low Amplitude Load Strengthening

There are two kinds of internationally recognized approaches in terms of lightweight design.One is based on fatigue accumulated damage theory to achieve better reliability by optimal structural design; another is to use high performance lightweight materials.The former method takes very few considerations on the structural strengthening effects caused by the massive small loads in service.In order to ensure safety,the design is usually conservative,but the strength potential of the component is not fully exerted.In the latter method,cost is the biggest obstacle to lightweight materials in automotive applications.For the purpose of light weighting design on a fuel cell vehicle,the new design method is applied on drive shafts.The method is based on the low amplitude load strengthening characteristics of the material,and allows the stress,corresponding to test load,to enter into the strengthened range of the material.Under this condition,the light weighting design should assure that the reliability of the shaft is not impaired,even maximizes the strength potential of machine part in order to achieve the weight reduction and eventually to reduce the cost.At last,the feasibility of the design is verified by means of strength analysis and modal analysis based on the CAD model of light weighted shaft.The design applies to the load case of half shaft in independent axle,also provides technological reference for the structural lightweight design of vehicles and other machineries.

GB/T 26779-2021《燃料电池电动汽车加氢口》标准分析

With the development of fuel cell electric vehicle industry in China,the 70-MPa hydrogen storage cylinders have been widely applied on vehicles in recent years.The revised standard,GB/T 26779-2021,Hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicle refueling receptacle,was released on March 9,2021 with added stipulations for the 70-MPa hydrogen refuelling receptacle.The main technical contents of GB/T 26779-2021 and its similarities and differences with GB/T 26779-2011 are discussed in this paper.

Techno-economic Analysis of Wind Curtailment/Hydrogen Production/Fuel Cell Vehicle System with High Wind Penetration in China

Wind curtailment/hydrogen production/fuel cell vehicle system(WCHPFCVS)is the use of curtailment to electrolyze water to produce hydrogen,which then provides energy for hydrogen fuel cell vehicles.In this paper,a techno-economic analysis of WCHPFCVS is proposed using the HOMER software.Large-scale wind power penetration is expected to lead to serious wind curtailment,and therefore,the hydrogen fuel cell vehicle will play an important role in future renewable energy storage,energy internet sharing,and electric transport areas.A system model of wind curtailment/hydrogen production/fuel cell vehicle is presented and analyzed using HOMER software to optimize the capacity and cost of the system.An annual revenue and profit of the system is then calculated and analyzed for energy conservation,emissions reduction,and environmental benefits.A technoeconomical evaluation of the system when cost of producing hydrogen and hydrogen load(fuel cell vehicle quantities)changes is also presented,taking into consideration the future progress of the technology and its market development.Techno-economic analysis of WCHPFCVS is shown as an effective method through a case study using actual data of curtailment from a wind farm in Jilin province in northeast China.

Failure mode investigation of fuel cell for vehicle application

The durability of proton exchange membrane fuel cells （PEMFCs） has been posing a key technical challenge to commercial spread of fuel cell vehicles （FCVs）. To improve the durability, it is necessary to optimize the fuel cell system （FCS） design against failure modes. The fuel cell durability research method at FCS scale was exhibited, and the failure modes of fuel cell were experimentally investigated in this paper. It is found that the fuel cell dry operation, start/stop cycle and gas diffusion layer （GDL） flooding are typical failure modes of fuel cells. After the modifications against the failure modes, the durability of FCSs is improved to over 3000 h step by step.

Cathode Design for Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells in Automotive Applications

An advanced cathode design can improve the power performance and durability of proton exchange membrane fuel cells(PEMFCs),thus reducing the stack cost of fuel cell vehicles(FCVs).Recent studies on highly active Pt alloy catalysts,short-side-chain polyfluorinated sulfonic acid(PFSA)ionomer and 3D-ordered electrodes have imparted PEMFCs with boosted power density.To achieve the compacted stack target of 6 kW/L or above for the wide commercialization of FCVs,developing available cathodes for high-power-density operation is critical for the PEMFC.However,current developments still remain extremely challenging with respect to highly active and stable catalysts in practical operation,controlled distribution of ionomer on the catalyst surface for reducing catalyst poisoning and oxygen penetration losses and 3D(three-dimensional)-ordered catalyst layers with low Knudsen diffusion losses of oxygen molecular.This review paper focuses on impacts of the cathode development on automotive fuel cell systems and concludes design directions to provide the greatest benefit.

Performance Improvement of a Centrifugal Compressor for the Fuel Cell Vehicle by Tip Leakage Vortex Control

Heightened interests have been laid at the preliminary design and optimization of the centrifugal compressor for the fuel cell vehicle.The centrifugal compressor for fuel cell vehicle is driven by a high-speed motor;however,the limit of the motor speed makes the flow passage of the impeller long and narrow,which leads to a serious tip leakage loss.Serious tip leakage loss deteriorates the compressor performance.In this paper,3-D numerical simulations were carried out with the aim of investigating the tip leakage loss in a prototype centrifugal compressor for a 100 kW fuel cell stack.The results revealed that the mixing loss caused by the interaction between the tip leakage vortex and the downstream tip leakage flow contributed to the major part of the tip leakage loss.The path of the tip leakage vortex almost followed the streamwise direction,while the downstream tip leakage flow exhibited strong circumferential momentum,which referred to the fact that they were nearly orthogonal.Therefore,a flow control approach,which was realized by enhancing the blade loading around the leading edge of blade tips in this paper,was proposed to decrease the interaction angle between the tip leakage vortex and the downstream tip leakage flow and then mitigate mixing loss by changing the flow direction of the tip leakage vortex.The results showed a smaller interaction angle was achieved in the optimized impeller compared with the baseline one.Meanwhile,the efficiency was also improved by 1.30%at design condition and the maximum efficiency improvement could be up to 10%at large mass flow condition of 92000 r/min.Being manufactured and tested,the optimized compressor was proved to achieve an isentropic efficiency of 75.84%at design condition.

Study of degradation of fuel cell stack based on the collected high-dimensional data and clustering algorithms calculations

Accurate perception of the performance degradation of fuel cell is very important to detect its health state.However,inconsistent operating conditions of fuel cell vehicles in the test result in errors in the data.In order to obtain a more credible degradation rate,this study proposes a novel method to classify the experimental data collected under different working conditions into similar operating conditions by using dimensionality reduction and clustering algorithms.Firstly,the experimental data collected from fuel cell vehicles belong to high-dimensional data.Then projecting high-dimensional data into three-dimensional feature vector space via principal component analysis(PCA).The dimension-reduced three-dimensional feature vectors are input into the clustering algorithm,such as K-means and density-based noise application spatial clustering(DBSCAN).According to the clustering results,the fuel cell voltage data with similar operating conditions can be classified.Finally,the selected voltage data can be used to precisely represent the true performance degradation of an on-board fuel cell stack.The results show that the voltage using the K-means algorithm declines the fastest,followed by the DBSCAN algorithm, finally the original data, which indicates that the performance of the fuel cell actually declines faste. Early intervention can prolong its life to the greatest extent.

GM Introduces New Fuel Cell Concept Vehicle

本文标题中的GM并非目前的热门缩略词GM(genetically modi—fied,转基因)而是General Motors(美国通用汽车公司)的缩略词。汽车制造业在过去的20世纪中有了长足的进步。无疑,新世纪将能目睹汽车更大的质的飞跃。汽车制造商正在动用巨额资金研制新型汽车,汽车制造业不断传来令人振奋的消息。《科技英语学习》曾经介绍过一种会飞的汽车,而本文则介绍了fuelcell concept vehicle(燃料电池新概念交通工具),这种汽车用liquid hydrogen(液态氢)驱动,fuel cell stack(燃料电池存储器)取代了传统的汽车发动机,它不仅符合环保要求,而且性能也极为优秀:行程达400公里/小时,时速达140公里。Fuel cell concept vehicle并非首次研制成功,研制人员在不断地改进完善其性能: Previous fuel—cell stacks took six minutes to reach full acceleration at freezingtemperatures,Wagoner said.The concept model developed takes 30 seconds.本文的末尾告诉我们在今年夏天的奥运会上,这种新型汽车将亮相。让我们拭目以待。

Prediction of hydrogen uptake of metal organic frameworks using explainable machine learning

Metal organic frameworks (MOFs) are considered as potential materials for hydrogen storage. The hydrogen uptake is influenced by several parameters (e.g., temperature, pressure, isosteric heat of adsorption, BET surface area). Of late, machine learning (ML) technique is used to assess the role of input features on the prediction. In the present study, a few ML models are selected, trained, and evaluated. The best and least performing models are tuned for hyperparameters. The results show that hyperparameter tuning (HPT) significantly increases the coefficient of determination (R2) of the least-performing model, the support vector regression (SVR). In contrast, the improvement in R2 with HPT is marginal for the best-performing model, the extra tree (ET), with a mean absolute error (MAE) of 0.088 wt% and R2 of 0.9945. The predictions made by the hyperparameter tuned extra tree model are explained using the Shapley additive explanations (SHAP) and contours together. The order of importance of input features in predicting the hydrogen uptake is identified as follows: temperature, pressure, isosteric heat of adsorption, and BET surface area. The SHAP dependence plots suggest that pressure is the common interactive feature among the input features in predicting hydrogen uptake. The present study helped understand the role of input features collectively in predicting the hydrogen uptake of MOFs.