HITACHI DEVELOPS COMPRESSOR FOR HYDROGEN FILLING STATIONS

HITACHI DEVELOPS COMPRESSOR FOR HYDROGEN FILLING STATIONS

Publication Date:17-February-2006
06:35 AM US Eastern Timezone
Source:Asia Pulse

TOKYO--Japan's Hitachi Industries Co. has developed a high-performance compressor for service stations that supply hydrogen gas to fuel cell vehicles. The company plans to test the machine at stations in Japan with the goal of having a practical version ready in fiscal 2007.

The compressor works to transfer hydrogen from the delivery truck to the on-site storage tank. Compared to other compressors, the new machine from Hitachi Industries is more efficient at removing hydrogen from the truck tank, and it then compresses the gas to 100 megapascals before transferring the hydrogen to the storage tank.

The delivery truck that brings hydrogen gas to the filling station carries hydrogen gas compressed to 20 megapascals. Usually only around half of this gas can be removed from the truck tank, but the new compressor can extract virtually all of the hydrogen because it lowers its pressure to just 0.6 megapascal when drawing gas from the tank.

Also, because the compressor compresses the hydrogen to 100 megapascals with five rounds of compression, fuel-cell cars that fill up at the station can fill with more hydrogen.

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