Product News

Honda Reports Successful Cold-Weather Demo of FCX Fuel Cell Vehicle

Honda Motor Co. has announced that it has conducted a successful cold-weather demonstration of its FCX fuel cell vehicle equipped with a Honda Fuel Cell Stack. Demonstrating the vehicle's cold-weather performance capabilities and its ability to start in below freezing temperatures is a major hurdle in the drive to create a truly mass-marketable fuel cell vehicle, according to the company.

Testing was conducted at Honda's test track and on public roads on the northern Japan island of Hokkaido. As a part of the test, the FCX successfully started after being parked outside overnight in temperatures as low as +12ºF (-11ºC). Test drives conducted immediately afterward demonstrated the vehicle's excellent cold weather driving performance. Honda will continue cold weather testing in its efforts to make widespread use of fuel cell vehicles a reality. The Honda FCX is the first fuel cell vehicle to be certified for regular commercial use by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the California Air Resources Board, and is currently being used by customers in the U.S. and Japan.

The Honda FC Stack, which the company plans to make commercially available within the next year, is the world's first fuel stack to feature below-freezing start capabilities, and the first to utilize a stamped metal separator structure and newly developed electrolyte membranes. Conventional fuel cell stacks have a complex structure in which carbon separators are fastened together with bolts. The Honda FC Stack, however, has a simplified structure composed of stamped metal separators with rubber seals that are attached in a unique molding process and enclosed by panels.

Penn State Research Shows Microbial Fuel Cell Produces Electricity, Cleans Water

Penn State environmental engineers have shown, for the first time, that a microbial fuel cell (MFC) can generate electricity while simultaneously cleaning the wastewater that you flush down the drain or toilet. To date, the Penn State experiments have produced between 10 and 50 milliWatts of power per square meter of electrode surface, or about 5 percent of the amount needed to run one mini-Christmas tree light, while removing up to 78 percent of organic matter as measured by biochemical oxygen demand (BOD).

Other researchers have shown that MFCs can be used to produce electricity from water containing pure chemicals including glucose, acetate or lactate. The Penn State researchers are the only ones, so far, to show that MFCs can produce electricity directly from wastewater skimmed from the settling pond of a treatment plant.

Microbial fuel cells work through the action of bacteria, which can pass electrons to an anode, the negative electrode of a fuel cell. The electrons flow from the anode through a wire, producing a current, to a cathode, the positive electrode of a fuel cell, where they combine with hydrogen ions (protons) and oxygen to form water.

In MFCs currently under investigation in other laboratories, various kinds of bacteria are typically added to the system. However, in the Penn State approach, no special bacteria are added. The naturally occurring bacteria in wastewater drive power production via a reaction that allows them to transport electrons from the cell surface to the anode. In addition, a reaction (oxidation) that occurs in the interior of the bacterial cell lowers the biochemical oxygen demand, cleaning the water.

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