Emissions Testing of a Hybrid Fuel Cell Bus 980680
The fuel cell bus program at Georgetown University (GU) has directed the operational development and testing of three hybrid fuel cell powered buses for transit operation. These are the world's first liquid-fueled, fuel cell powered road vehicles. This paper describes the emissions testing of one of these buses on a heavy duty chassis dynamometer at West Virginia University (WVU). The tested bus was driven by a 120 kW DC motor and utilized a 50 kW phosphoric acid fuel cell (PAFC) as an energy source with a 100 kW battery for supplemental power. A methanol/water fuel mixture was converted by a steam reformer to a hydrogen rich gas mixture for use in a fuel cell stack. Emissions from the reformer, fuel cell stack and startup burner were monitored for both transient and steady-state operation. It was concluded that this first-generation fuel cell bus offers an attractive approach to reducing emissions of particulate matter (PM), oxides of nitrogen (NOx), hydrocarbons (HC) and carbon dioxide (CO2) relative to conventional drivetrain transit buses operating on both diesel and alternative fuels. Carbon monoxide (CO) emissions were similar to existing alternative fuel buses, and further analysis revealed the cause of this unexpected result was linked to the flow of methanol into the reformer burner. Alternative operating strategies are being incorporated into the next generation fuel cell buses resulting in greatly reduced carbon monoxide emissions.
Citation: Wimmer, R., Fletcher, J., Clark, N., McKain, D. et al., "Emissions Testing of a Hybrid Fuel Cell Bus," SAE Technical Paper 980680, 1998, https://doi.org/10.4271/980680. Download Citation
Author(s):
Robert R. Wimmer, James Fletcher, Nigel N. Clark, David L. McKain, Donald W. Lyons
Affiliated:
Fuel Cell Program, Georgetown University, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, West Virginia University
Pages: 12
Event:
International Congress & Exposition
ISSN:
0148-7191
e-ISSN:
2688-3627
Also in:
General Emissions-SP-1335, Electric and Hybrid-Electric Vehicles-PT-85, SAE 1998 Transactions - Journal of Fuels and Lubricants-V107-4
Related Topics:
Carbon monoxide
Fuel cells
Alternative fuels
Particulate matter (PM)
Nitrogen oxides
Carbon dioxide
Buses
Environmental testing
Emissions certification
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