ISRAEL: February 1, 2008


TEL AVIV - An Israeli-Russian-German venture said it had developed a safe and lightweight hydrogen tank, overcoming a significant obstacle to the mass manufacture of automobiles operated by hydrogen fuel.


The venture, known as C.En, has completed a design and test programme aimed at producing the tank for use in cars, Moshe Stern, who leads the investors in the project, told Reuters on Thursday.

One of the biggest hurdles to building hydrogen-powered cars has been the safe and lightweight storage of hydrogen. Stern said C.En's technology solves three main storage problems: weight, volume and safety.

"We can build a 60-litre tank that can travel up to 600 km and weighs no more than 50 kg," Stern said, adding this compares with about 150-200 km for existing hydrogen cars. Unlike others working with hydrogen, C.En uses hydrogen gas rather than liquid.

"Our breakthrough is that we have succeeded in accumulating hydrogen in a glass material that is very small, only a few microns," said Stern, who is also president of Israeli waste treatment company Environmental Energy Resources (EER).

"You don't need to transport hydrogen to fuel stations and you don't need pipelines. The tanks will be like a battery that can be replaced and you can carry a reserve in the car."

He said this technology could also be used for laptops, mobile phones and military applications.

Long a centre for technological innovation, Israel is seeking to leverage that experience in the field of clean energy that has become popular due to soaring oil prices and pollution from heavy use of fossil fuels.

Last week, the Renault-Nissan alliance signed a deal to mass produce electric cars as part of an Israeli-led project to develop alternative energy sources and slash oil dependency.

Ilan Riess, a physics professor at the Technion Israel Institute of Technology, said if C.En's technology succeeds it would be breakthrough.

"It will help to achieve a practical solution for the hydrogen era," he said. "When you run out of fossil fuel you need another fuel source and you don't want everything to run on electricity. You also want a mobile source of chemical energy."

Storing hydrogen in the needed quantity has been one of the biggest obstacles to using it as a fuel source, as it has to be in a limited volume and weight, he said.

"It seems that they succeeded. Their tank is roughly the size and weight of a normal fuel tank," Riess said, noting that hydrogen fuel tanks currently in use are too heavy and therefore limited in how much they can store.


GERMAN TESTS

C.En's hydrogen fuel tank is undergoing another series of tests at the German Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing, also known as BAM.

"We have moved to their lab to get a worldwide stamp of approval," Stern said. "If results turn out as well as predicted, they will prove that an alternative energy source exists and the reliance on Arab oil will lessen significantly."

After six months of testing in Germany, the technology will be presented to US authorities and international carmakers and C.En will seek out a strategic partner.

"We will have a prototype tank in a year, perhaps even earlier," Stern said, adding that besides auto manufacturers, the technology could interest large energy companies.

C.En has raised US$10 million so far. Stern leads the investors' group, which includes Shlomo Nehama, the former chairman of Israel's largest bank, Hapoalim, and economist Yacov Sheinin. Other investors include Japan's Tokyo Financial Group as well as South Korean and Russian investors.

The scientists working on the project, which started up three years ago, are from Russia, Germany, South Korea and Japan and are led by Dan Eliezer of Israel's Ben-Gurion University.

"We are looking now for one of the giants to adopt our technology and support it," Stern said. (Editing by Steven Scheer)


Story by Tova Cohen


REUTERS NEWS SERVICE