Processor boosts fuel-cell cars

Chemical Engineering Progress, Oct 2000

Update General Motors Corp. and ExxonMobil Corp. have developed a gasoline fuel processor for fuel cell vehicles that "could be the bridge between today's conventional vehicles and tomorrow's hydrogen fuel cell vehicles," says Harry J. Pearce, GM vice chairman. "While we view hydrogen as the future fuel for automotive applications, we have significant commercial challenges, such as designing and building a large number of hydrogen refueling stations, developing feasible on-board fuel tanks, and agreeing to industrywide specifications," he notes.

The new processor uses gasoline as a fuel to create a high-quality stream of hydrogen that powers a fuel cell. Consumers will be able to fuel the new vehicles the same way they fuel their present cars, making use of the existing infrastructure.

The processor is said to have an efficiency that exceeds 80%. By the end of this year, GM plans to demonstrate in a laboratory an integrated system with an advanced version of the new processor and a GM fuel cell stack producing 25 kW. The overall peak efficiency of the early-generation system is expected to be nearly 40%, which is nearly twice the efficiency of today's vehicles over a typical drive cycle, the company points out.