Thai Researcher Introduces Fuel Cell-powered Car

[george]

Thai researcher introduces fuel cell-powered car

BANGKOK: -- The Office of the National Research Council of Thailand (NRCT) has launched a prototype of a fuel cell car, urging the government to support its production for commercial use.

NRCT secretary-general Ahnond Bunyaratvej said the ten kilowatt fuel cell sedan was developed from 960 kilowatt fuel cell car by Air Marshall Morakot Charnsamruat.

The car is powered by electricity produced by proton exchange membrane fuel cells which transform the chemical energy liberated during the electrochemical reaction of hydrogen and oxygen to electrical energy.

The car can last about ten years. The car's maximum speed is 93 kilometres per hour and it doesn't emit smoke or noise, so it can help reduce pollution.

AM Morakot said a fuel cell car produced in other countries costs about Bt32 million but his prototype car costs only two million baht.

Hydrogen used in producing electricity to run the car came from factories in the eastern province of Rayong. He said about eight million litres of hydrogen annually are wasted from these factories.

The NRCT executive added that if the government supports fuel car production and hydrogen filling stations, the amount of hydrogen can serve about 126,000 cars. He added that hydrogen can also be produced by solar cells.

-- TNA 2008-07-12

[ChiangMaiAmerican]

Thai researcher introduces fuel cell-powered car

AM Morakot said a fuel cell car produced in other countries costs about Bt32 million but his prototype car costs only two million baht.

-- TNA 2008-07-12

Unless he has created a new type of fuel cell this isn't that new. Honda has already begun leasing fuel cell cars in the US and Japan. Chevrolet also has fuel cell vehicles on the road but they are given to consumers to test for a period of several months. I doubt either vehicle costs 32 million baht since the lease terms are competitive. The major problem with fuel cell vehicles is the cost of fuel cells. Platinum metals are used as a catalyst to produce electricity. Platinum isn't cheap. Fuel cells also have a limited life span and must be replaced or rebuilt. That said fuel cells are part of the alternative energy picture.

A better solution for Thailand that can begin implemention immediately over a period of months rather than years is the creation of algae farms for the production of biodiesel. Thailand has an excellent climate for a project such as this. There is already one company in the US, PetroSun, that has begun the commercial exploitation of algae oil. In April of this year they opened a facility in Hondo, Texas. They also purchased an exisitng biodiesel refinery to make use of their algae oil feedstock. Other companies are racing to join them.

Unlike palm oil algae hols the promise of producing enough oil to completely replace petroleum. One acre of algae yields between five and twenty thousand gallons of oil per year. With palm oil trees you are lucky to get five to six hundred gallons per year per acre. Thailand could easily replace diesel with biodiesel using algae if the political will were there. Presently the palm oil plantations appear to hold the government's interest projects like this don't appear to be on the horizon.

http://world.honda.com/news/2008/4080616First-FCX-Clarity/

http://www.chevrolet.com/fuelcell/

http://www.unh.edu/p2/biodiesel/article_alge.html

http://www.petrosuninc.com/alternative-energy.html

Edited July 12, 2008 by ChiangMaiAmerican

[Scott]

Thanks CMA, very informative and glad to know they are trying some new technologies.

[astral]

WOW

And to think that no other country has ever come up with such an innovative idea............

[A_Traveller]

As an aside the first 'fuel cell' {the term was used 50 years later} was built by Sir William Robert Grove in 1839. I'm not sure when the first vehicle was, I recall it being in the late '50s, and as noted there are a number of current {no pun intended} vehicle programmes.

Regards

[MrSnrang]

WOW

And to think that no other country has ever come up with such an innovative idea............

But at least they're showing an effort at trying to move forward.

If they really wanted to make an instant difference, though, they would either speed up the eco car project or allow less-restricted import of small and efficient grocery-getters instead of encouraging Toyota to make a land yacht that won't get superb mileage and will rape the consumer 6 years down the line when it needs a new battery.

[dkstoney]

A good start for Thailand would be to first adopt California emission control standards.

[LukDod]

The car is powered by electricity produced by proton exchange membrane fuel cells which transform the chemical energy liberated during the electrochemical reaction of hydrogen and oxygen to electrical energy.

And the catalyst for the reaction?

probably som tam....

[gk10002000]

Hehe. I must say, some of you guys wrote some witty replies "curent" was an example. I majored in thermodynamics and thermal sciences. These Hydrogen Oxygen fuel cells are nice, but people tend to forget where the Oxygen and Hydrogen come from. You don't get anything for free in this world. You must use electricty to make the H and the O. Assuming electrolyisis is how you are making it. Electrolysis is itself has inefficiencies. Then however you made the electricity to drive the electrolyis (lets assume a coal or oil fired plant) has its own inefficiencies.

The bottom line is that when you consider the overall energy balance, you used up much more energy than you get out of the fuel cell. The H2O fuell cell is a great idea for certain applications like space vehicle and other vehicles where cost and overall efficiency is not important. But don't make the mistake of thinkng they are the solution to an energy problem. The first and second laws of thermodynamics along with some electrochemistry limits for dissociation and association will prevent that.

[Tywais]

I'm a senior researcher at a major university and directly involved in fuel cell research and development. We have been doing it for over 10 years but only in the last couple has it figuratively exploded. It is one of the fastest growing best funded projects at our facility. I have developed two test stations, two more are being built and tested, one more was built to demonstrate running 220VAC/50Hz appliances from a fuel cell and the latest is a fuel cell tricycle/bicycle.

The OP did not state it is new or ground breaking technology only that Thailand is not sitting on it's hands regarding new energy sources. Ours is a teaching laboratory with a large compliment of students, both B.S., M.S. and PhD candidates, working on the FC technology. Further, we are getting outside interest in building the stations for other facilities within Thailand.

Some points. First the platinum catalyst issue. Yes, they do rely upon platinum however the amount used a few years ago was around 2 oz but the projection by 2010 is .2 oz. Considering that catalytic converters used in fossil fuel powered cars (for exhaust emissions) uses platinum also and will not be necessary in a FC car, that demand will switch to the FC. A FC that can support a car has approximately 20,000 hours life time. Driving 5 hours a day, 7 days a week will give a life expectancy of around 11 years. Platinum recycling of catalytic converters will also switch to FC recycling. Techniques for using non rare earth metals rather then PGM (Platinum Group Metals) is being investigated also.

Regarding dissociating water to it's elemental form, electrolysis is not the only technique available and it is true that method is not efficient. Newer FCs have reformers (aka electrolyzers - Google it) that can convert methanol directly into H2 & O2 within the cell through catalytic or photoelectrolysis. The same with using pure water, same technique can and is being developed with prototypes already out there. An example is a water powered FC car has been built in Japan. Recently a company built a water powered battery for mobile phones and also laptop batteries. We are investigating those techniques and micro fuel cells also.

[ChiangMaiAmerican]

You can also obtain hydrogen from syngas which can be made from coal. Thailand has the necessary coals deposits. Syngas can also be converted to diesel or benzene using the Fischer-Tropsch method. Germany ran on Fischer-Tropsch fuels for most of WWII. South Africa currently obtains about half its motor vehicle fuel from coal via the Fischer-Tropsch method. Further, a US company has developed and pateneted a method to convert glycerol into syngas. Glycerol is a byproduct of biodiesel production.

Still, until the price of fuel cells drops they aren't likely to be widely used in motor vehicles.

http://www.floridasyngas.com/product.shtml

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fischer-Tropsch_process

http://www.slate.com/id/2152036/?nav=ais

Edited July 13, 2008 by ChiangMaiAmerican

[ChiangMaiAmerican]

Several US firms have been producing fuel cell power systems since the 1990s. They are expensive but reliable. Plug Power is one I am most familiar with since I looked into the company early on when I was considering investing. Plug power had placed a number of fuel cell units with private homeowners to test their off grid performance. There was and probably still is a unit operating at a police precinct in New York's central park. The ability of fuel cells to provide the needed power to operate home appliances is well established. Bringing the cost of the units down has been the issue in getting them more widely used in the energy market.

http://www.plugpower.com/products/overview.cfm

[Tywais]

Bringing the cost of the units down has been the issue in getting them more widely used in the energy market.

Fully agree on that. However mass production seems to fix that issue.

[makavelithedon]

Bringing the cost of the units down has been the issue in getting them more widely used in the energy market.

Fully agree on that. However mass production seems to fix that issue.

I saw a debate on this recently and being ignorant of the fact personally before, it was quoted that approximately 95% of what is necessary to drive fuel cell cars is from fossil fuel cast offs which seems to me a back to square one scenario.

Surely until the powerstation pollution bit is rectified all of these plug-ins,hybrids, fuel cells etc etc are just misleading the masses into believing it will all be sweetness and light in the global warming garden as soon as we adopt these drive trains?

[ChiangMaiAmerican]

Bringing the cost of the units down has been the issue in getting them more widely used in the energy market.

Fully agree on that. However mass production seems to fix that issue.

I saw a debate on this recently and being ignorant of the fact personally before, it was quoted that approximately 95% of what is necessary to drive fuel cell cars is from fossil fuel cast offs which seems to me a back to square one scenario.

Surely until the powerstation pollution bit is rectified all of these plug-ins,hybrids, fuel cells etc etc are just misleading the masses into believing it will all be sweetness and light in the global warming garden as soon as we adopt these drive trains?

If the debate you saw was being moderated by so called journalists or would be politicians it is likely you got the wrong facts. As mentioned earlier, syngas which contains the necessary hydrogen to power fuel cells can be readily and cheaply produced from glycerol. Syngas can also be converted to benzene or diesel. The process uses only 10% of the energy in the glycerol to make the conversion. Glycerol is a byproduct of biodiesel production. Sufficient biodiesel to power the entire country could be produced on marginal land in the Kingdom from high fat content algae if the government would get serious about solving the energy problem. Private industry is already opening algae farms in the US to produce oil feedstock for biodiesel. Algae is far more productive than any other plant oil source.

Algae to oil isn't a new concept. The US Department of energy conducted extensive testing in the late 1980s thorugh the mid 1990s. They wanted to use algae to scrub the CO2 emmission from power plants and convert the algae to oil. At the time the price of oil was low and it wasn't economically feasible. The tests concluded that alage could be grown in open ponds. The also established productivity ranges for algae to oil. Time have changed and outside Thailand algae to oil companies are being created. Some of the algae to oil players like Chevron, Royal Dutch Shell andPetroSun are already in the petroleum oil business.

Thailand could do likewise. The first US company to open a commercial algae farm, PetroSun, is planning to open other facilities in the US as well as Mexico, Brazil and Australia. Thailand was not on the list of expansion projects. If Thailand were serious they could aggressively approach the companies and offer tax incentives and other privileges to set up here. But wait, these are foreign owned companies. We can't have foreigners competing with inefficient Thai businesses. Thais must control the businesses and tell the foreigners what to do with and h0w to spend their money. In the end the companies open elsewhere. The energy problem in Thailand is solvable in the relatively short term if those who control the country are willing to make the effort to attract the foreign companies with the know how and capital to do so.

Edited July 14, 2008 by ChiangMaiAmerican

[chingching]

Hello,

Would someone comment about "He said about eight million litres of hydrogen annually are wasted from these factories." I was under the impression that hydrogen was expensive to produce. It seems these factories would find something to do with it , rather than just throwing it away.

[h90]

You can also obtain hydrogen from syngas which can be made from coal. Thailand has the necessary coals deposits. Syngas can also be converted to diesel or benzene using the Fischer-Tropsch method. Germany ran on Fischer-Tropsch fuels for most of WWII. South Africa currently obtains about half its motor vehicle fuel from coal via the Fischer-Tropsch method. Further, a US company has developed and pateneted a method to convert glycerol into syngas. Glycerol is a byproduct of biodiesel production.

Still, until the price of fuel cells drops they aren't likely to be widely used in motor vehicles.

http://www.floridasyngas.com/product.shtml

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fischer-Tropsch_process

http://www.slate.com/id/2152036/?nav=ais

Well with Fischer-Tropsch you can make benzine, don't need to make H2.

Costs 60 USD/barel.

South Africa has, China is making one plant after the other.

[MrSnrang]

Hello,

Would someone comment about "He said about eight million litres of hydrogen annually are wasted from these factories." I was under the impression that hydrogen was expensive to produce. It seems these factories would find something to do with it , rather than just throwing it away.

Hydrogen gas is a byproduct of many chemical reactions.

Often times the hydrogen is reused in another chemical process but I bet that in some cases there is no reason to try to recapture it.