August 2004

E-Mail This Article Printer-Friendly Version

LAKE FOREST, IL/BRUSSELS - Tenneco Automotive, a $3.8 billion maker of emission and ride control equipment for cars and trucks, is the only U.S.-based company taking part in a startup multi-year European project that aims at developing a production-ready fuel cell power plant.

Last month, Tenneco announced its participation in the Euro 16.8 million (about $20.8 million) HyTRAN project led by Sweden’s Volvo Technology Corp., the car and truck makers’ research arm. About half of the funding comes from the European Commission under its 6th Framework Program for Sustainable Development. The company is joining 18 major European vehicle manufacturers, component suppliers and research institutions in this 4.5 year project which officially started earlier this year.

The basic twin goals are to develop an 80 kW (107 hp) direct hydrogen fuel cell as a power plant for a car, and a 10 kW (13 hp) auxiliary power unit (APU) for on-board power for trucks, for example, as well as stationary applications. The APU will include a fuel processor and a system to clean up the hydrogen for use in small, quiet on-board fuel cells that would provide power to keep perishable loads such as vegetables and fish refrigerated when the truck is parked. This would eliminate the need to keep noisy main diesel engines idling at night, for example - a big no-no in many European municipalities.

“Manufacturable” Fuel Cell Engine is Goal

Bård Lindström, a senior scientist in charge of fuel cell systems at Volvo Technology Corp., Gothenburg, Sweden, who is in charge of HyTRAN, told H&FCL the basic intent - coming up with a fully manufacturable fuel cell engine - is “absolutely” the defining key feature of the project. “We wanted somebody who has experience in commercially packaging this device,” he said.

Tenneco fit the bill: the company which will be responsible for developing cost-effective key air and fuel flow components that integrate these systems, and development of the diesel processor and clean-up devices will employ advanced thermal and flow technology that’s similar to emission control systems that Tenneco already produces for gasoline and diesel engines.

Tenneco will also be in charge of developing noise, vibration and harshness reduction techniques, with all work to be done at the company’s European headquarters in Edenkoben, Germany.

As Glenn Rambach, Tenneco Automotive’s director of new technology, told H&FCL, “the idea is not to make a product that makes sense and then figure out how produce it, but to set guidelines for manufacturability right from the beginning.” The goal is to avoid “a lot of mid-course corrections.”

Two fuel cell stacks from consortium partners DaimlerChrysler and Nuvera will form the basis of the work. The other members of the group are Centro Ricerche Fiat, Renault, Volkswagen, DaimlerChrysler, DAF Trucks, Nuvera Fuel Cells, Johnson Matthey Fuel Cells, Opcon Autorotor, Weidmann Plastics Technology, Adrop, Institut f r Kraftfahrwesen Aachen, Netherlands Energy Research Centre, Politechnico di Torino, Paul Scherer Institute, Institut f r Mikrotechnik Mainz, Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine, London, and Environment Park, Torino.

Although Volvo hasn’t been much in the news in terms of fuel cell development, the company has been active in this area for a decade and a half, including in a joint project with Volkswagen in the mi-1990s in the so-called “Capri” project (H&FCL Oct 96). “We don’t keep it a secret, but we don’t trumpet it either,” says Lindström. Volvo has also done work on fuel processing, “everything from ethanol to gasoline,” says Lindström. The last project, in which Volvo successfully operated a fuel cell APU on gasoline, ended a year ago. Contacts: Tenneco (media), Jane Ostrander, 847/482-5607; Volvo Technology Corp., Dr. Bård Lindström, phone 046/31/772-4278.