Cold Combustion | Green Energy News

February 3, 2002 – Vol.6 No.45

COLD COMBUSTION.

Using a real-world situation to test its fuel cell experimental car, Volkswagen has successfully driven its HY.POWER, a modified Volkswagen Bora (Jetta in the U.S.) in the depths of winter over the 6578 foot Simplon Pass that connects Italy and Switzerland .

HY.POWER uses the company’s proprietary fuel cell technology and two supercaps or ultra-capacitors, for additional on-demand power. HY.POWER’s electric traction motor has a 75 kilowatt rating (102 horsepower) and the supercaps provide 30 kilowatts of power for short periods of time for passing and mountain climbing. In the journey HY.POWER performed as well as a stock gasoline Bora of the same horsepower rating.

VW is describing the chemical reaction in a fuel cell appropriately as cold combustion. Hydrogen is oxidized within the fuel cell stack without an ignition source such as a flame or spark. The proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell was developed with the help of the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) in Zurich, Switzerland. The key component in the new design is its low-cost-to-manufacture membrane developed by PSI.

Tested along side HY.POWER was a Bora TDI (turbo diesel) running on a biodiesel fuel known as SunFuel. Volkswagen thinks that SunFuel can be used successfully in fuel cell cars that have a reformer on board from which to extract hydrogen from the renewable fuel. Visit the Paul Scherrer Institute at http://www.psi.ch/ .