GM Demonstrates Onboard Fuel Processor That Extracts Hydrogen From Gasoline

Autoparts Report, August 15, 2001

General Motors introduced a new gasoline fuel processing system for fuel cell propulsion. The Gen III processor, packaged in a Chevrolet S-10 pickup, reforms "clean" gasoline onboard, extracting a stream of hydrogen to send to the fuel cell stack.

"When combined with our fuel cell stack, the technology has the potential to obtain 40 percent overall energy efficiency, which is about 50 percent better than a conventional internal combustion engine," said Larry Burns, GM's vice president of research and development, and planning. The processor was packaged on a Chevrolet S-10.

Onboard gasoline reforming is significant because all other fuel cells run on either pure hydrogen or hydrogen extracted from methanol, Burns explained. "But, right now, you can't get hydrogen or methanol at your corner gas station and it would cost hundreds of billions of dollars to create such an infrastructure," he said.

"Developing gasoline-fed fuel cells makes the technology much more attainable -- even within this decade." GM intends to make gasoline-fed fuel cells an interim strategy until a hydrogen infrastructure is established. Driving demonstrations will be scheduled for early next year. The Gen III gasoline processor also offers faster start times than the previous version, with the capability of starting in less than three minutes compared to the previous 15-minute start times. It has a peak efficiency of 80 percent.

"Our Gen III takes gasoline and cracks it into its hydrogen components," said Burns. "To our knowledge, no one else has cracked gasoline in an onboard system." The truck also features GM's Stack 2000, which generates electricity from the hydrogen and oxygen fed to it. This is the same stack technology GM used to set 11 endurance records for vehicles powered by fuel cells in May.