Hydrogen Internal Combustion Engine Two Wheeler with on-board Metal Hydride Storage

The overall goal of this project is to demonstrate the potential for commercialization of a small, hydrogen fueled vehicle using ECD’s proprietary metal hydride storage system as a fuel tank. Two of the major components of the project have been (a) the conversion of a gasolinepowered scooter to run on hydrogen and (b) integration of the metal hydride hydrogen storage system into the hydrogen-ICE scooter. Both these tasks have been successfully accomplished. The eventual goal is to fuel the vehicle with domestically produced renewable hydrogen. Renewable hydrogen can be obtained from sources such as electrolysis using low cost electricity, hydrogen as a by-product of the chlorine/caustic industry and hydrogen produced by the direct gasification of biomass. This approach allows for near-term entry of hydrogen into the transportation sector of the developing nations. The work done here is also applicable to the production of clean distributed power using metal hydride storage systems and hydrogen ICE’s to replace highly polluting diesel and kerosene gen-sets. Our study has also shown that electrolytic hydrogen is viable for recharging the metal hydride tanks and the availability of costeffective hydrogen in India (which we chose as a test case) is not a barrier. Thus, in the near to mid term, while the cost of fuel cell technology will act as a barrier to commercialization, as a transition, the hydrogen internal combustion engine can lead the way to a hydrogen economy, allowing developing countries to leap-frog.