Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Now, ISRO scientists develop hydrogen fuel cells to power bus

Bangalore, Nov 17 (PTI) India's space scientists have developed hydrogen fuel cells to power an automobile bus by leveraging their know-how of the homegrown cryogenic technology for rockets.The two-year effort has yielded positive results and the scientists are now readying for the fuel cells to be fitted into a bus."That's not exactly the cryogenic technology... (It's) liquid hydrogen handling and that's where we have some expertise. So, we have finalised the design", Chairman of Indian Space Research Organisation, G Madhavan Nair told PTI here.According to Honorary Adviser of ISRO V Gnana Gandhi leading the technical team in this project, ISRO and Tata Motors entered into an MoU in 2006 to design and develop an automobile bus using hydrogen as a fuel through fuel cell route.Nair said: "Tatas are taking the responsibility for the locomotive part of it, and hydrogen handling system also. First protomodel has been assembled. Results are good. May be next year, it should be on the road".Gandhi said: "We are planning to integrate the system in the first quarter of next year (January-March 2009), and vehicle integration in the second quarter".He said the hydrogen cells are a spin-off of the cryogenic technology that ISRO has been developing for the last few years. PTI
Source: PTI

No comments: