Clean car technology on display at Imperial

Nissan and the Energy Futures Lab showcase their latest research - <em>News</em>

Thursday 17 July 2008
By Naomi Weston

Fuel cell technology is on display at Imperial this week as Nissan launches its new hydrogen powered fuel cell vehicle and the cross-faculty Energy Futures Lab showcases the cutting edge research that supports it.

A fuel cell powered by hydrogen produces no harmful emissions, only water. Current research at Imperial involves understanding and improving the performance and lifetime of the materials used within fuel cells, modelling the behaviour of fuel cells and exploring the social and economic barriers to the uptake of fuel cell technology.

The Energy Futures Lab at Imperial is also undertaking extensive research programmes into the clean production of hydrogen with effective use of fossil fuels, sequestration of carbon dioxide and the direct production of hydrogen from solar energy using biological and catalytic processes.

Engineering undergraduates are currently working on designing and manufacturing fuel cell hybrid vehicles as part of the Racing Green project. The latest prototype is on display all this week in the College’s main entrance alongside Nissan’s new fuel cell vehicle (FCV). Based on the Nissan X-TRAIL, the FCV is powered by hydrogen fuel cells.

The Racing Green team

The College is also housing Nissan’s mobile hydrogen refuelling rig enabling the cars to refuel and drive around the local area.

Mechanical engineering third year undergraduate, Mark Cordner, has just won a summer placement with Nissan in Japan working on the company’s FCV programme.

He has been heavily involved in Racing Green and was chief engineer for the project in his third year. In Japan he will be working with the group of engineers who develop components for the FCV.

Mark will spend six weeks in Japan. He said: “I am really excited about working in Japan. I will see first hand how Nissan’s fuel cell research is being developed. I hope to feed back what I learn to the Racing Green team.”

Once back at Imperial for his fourth year of study, Mark will develop his knowledge of fuel cells and work on a project looking into how fuel cells can be damaged and what solutions there are to this.

Professor Nigel Brandon, Executive Director of the Energy Futures Lab and Shell Chair in Sustainable Development in Energy, said:

“I am delighted that we are building stronger links with Nissan through this week’s activities and that one of our students has the opportunity to work with the engineers in Japan. These are exciting times in the development of the next generation of vehicle technologies, be they hybrid, electric or fuel cell, and Imperial is at the forefront of teaching and research in these areas.”

To find out more about the scientific and engineering challenges and progress in hydrogen production and application to fuel cells, a series of talks are being given on Friday 18 July.

The event, a partnership between Nissan and Imperial’s Energy Futures Lab, will include presentations by Professor Nigel Brandon on solar routes to Hydrogen, Dr Anthony Kucernak from the Department of Chemistry on the fuel cell programme at Imperial and research postgraduate student Ralph Clague from Mechanical Engineering, talking about the Racing Green project.

After the presentations, Nissan will offer tours of the new FCV and Racing Green students will be on hand to discus their vehicles.

The event is open to all staff and students at Imperial. For more information or to register please email: peter.j.evans@imperial.ac.uk