PULLMAN, Wash. – A group of Washington State University students has designed a plan for an innovative and economical fueling station that could help make environmentally friendly, hydrogen-powered cars a viable option for future transportation.
The idea took first place last week in an international hydrogen design competition against teams from Asia, Europe, South Africa and North America. The award was announced at the 2014 Alternative Clean Transportation exposition in Long Beach, Calif.
While hydrogen fuel cell vehicles exist, they aren’t expected to enter the market on a commercial basis until 2015. Only a handful of hydrogen fueling stations exist in the United States, each costing about $2 million to $4 million to build.
The students say that boosting the amount of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles on the road could help reduce CO2 emissions.
“Hydrogen is everywhere,” said Ian Richardson, team leader on the WSU project and a graduate student in the School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering, in a press release. “You can get it from anything, and the emissions of fuel cell electric vehicles are just water.”
The annual Hydrogen Student Design Contest challenges university students to design energy applications for real-world use. This year, they were asked to design a transportable, stand-alone, reasonably priced refueling station for hydrogen fuel cell vehicles.
The challenge was to create a fueling station that would be low cost, easy to permit, low maintenance, transportable and readily mass-produced. It needed to fill up a vehicle with five kilograms of hydrogen fuel in less than five minutes — enough for a vehicle to travel 300 miles or equivalent to what current gas stations provide.
The WSU team’s winning design was safe and reliable, while also lowering building costs of current stations by 75%. Conducting an economic analysis, the students determined that filling a hydrogen fuel tank to go 300 miles would cost about $48, which is comparable to regular gasoline. They developed a business plan in which a portable hydrogen fuel station could work in conjunction with existing gas stations in a way that would benefit both entities.
“The design the students developed looks to be completely implementable right now,” said Jake Leachman, assistant professor in the School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering and an advisor on the project. “We want to build one, and we should. The business model/idea is innovative and could lead to a startup company.”
Judges for the competition said the WSU students had come up with an “innovative design with potential for implementation in the near future” and that they “made a strong case for liquid hydrogen delivery.”