Featured Methanol reformulated fuel cell car

Nissan has an ethanol fuel cel nv200 in trials for Brazil .

 

They also plan an ethanol FCEV car for Japan as part of the country's fuel cell showcase during the Olympics. It uses a solid oxide fuel cell that reforms the ethanol internally. Odds are the NV200 is using the same fuel cell.

It sounds like this methanol car is using a PEM fuel cell like what the hydrogen powered FCEVs use, and has a separate reformer onboard for methanol. Can't discount the reporter misunderstanding the details though.

 

I assume you mean 34 kw, not kWh, as fuel cells are measured by power, the energy is in the fuel, in this case methanol. I have no idea how big the fuel cell actually is, but this would put it a 1/3 the cost or less than those in the mirai or clarity fuel cell. Other sources talk about a 70 kwh battery, so maybe this sports car only does need a tiny fuel cell.

Yes this is a small volume production of a phev sports car. The methanol reformer to PEM fuel cell is proven technology. If it's battery is as big as rumored, then the fuel cell itself does not need to be that stressed. Fuel cell or reformer fails, you still have the battery ;-) Mercedes even had one with a reformer on board that used gasoline, but methanol is fairly easy to get in china.

Nissan's use of a solid oxide fuel cell is technically a more risky venture. The big advantage is the materials do not need to be expensive. The problem is solid oxide fuel cells need to run hot, which gives a big penalty in efficiency for short trips. Using a small atkinson engine seems to be a easier way to flex fuel ethanol, methanol, or gasoline into a range extender, but governments are throwing money at fuel cells. I'd be surprised if a modified prius prime on ethanol got much worse fuel economy than one using a solid oxide fuel cell when in charge sustain mode.

 

As you said, governments are throwing money at this. I thought Nissan's choice of ethanol could have been to show up the hydrogen lobby in Japan, but a FCEV van in Brazil using this fuel cell could have legs.

Seems they are only now just getting a flex fuel Prius there. So numbers for comparison will be off.
Toyota's Developing This Flex-Fuel Hybrid Prius In Brazil | Carscoops
Brazil is having the first flexible fuel hybrid Prius | AutoDeal

 

Brazilian alcohol ..... truly green. You mow down rain forest at a record pace so you can get a few seasons of corn or cane sugar in the poor agro, soil ..... then turn it into alcohol - just so you can call it renewable & clean. Then mow down more rain forest & repeat. Between use for fuel & use for raising/feeding cattle? Yay! Go Brazilian alcohol fuel cells! Rain Forest .... who needs air anyway.
Amazon Deforestation Rate Up 29 Percent From Last Year, Study Finds : The Two-Way : NPR
Ya can't make that crazy stuff up.
.

 

Think you meant sugar cane there, which is a better food for ethanol than corn.
Palm oil for biodiesel is also fraught with issues along the same lines.

But do you abandon them, and most likely go back to petroleum. Plug ins and electricity won't work every where. Japan is a high tech, first world nation, and about half the homes there can only charge up a Prime in 10 hours at best.

Better, cleaner production for ethanol, or even synthetic petroleum, might come to pass. Eitherway, Brazil has chosen to use ethanol over fossil fuels for transportation. 'Burning' it in a fuel cell might mean using less of it than burning it in an ICE like they currently do.

 

Fueleconomy.gov's default price of regular gasoline is lower than what I pay locally. Their hydrogen figure is close to a NREL report of hydrogen production at wind powered plants; I assume electrolysis of water. That number could include subsidies from wind power incentives. It doesn't include shipping the hydrogen to the station, and the costs to recompress and rechill it.

But the discussion is about Brazil and Nissan's fuel cell. Ethanol, and ICE cars designed to use it, is readily available. Brazilian flex fuel cars run on E20 to E100. So the public there is well acquainted will using it as a fuel for cars. Using it for a FCEV means no hydrogen infrastructure to build, nor bulky tanks in cars. It is also a smaller and purer compound to reform onboard than gasoline.

While a fuel cell might only be 60% efficient, the best gasoline engines are a mere 40% to 42% efficient. The test FCEV in Brazil was a modified e-NV200 electric van. The 2L gas version is rated 25mpg combined in the US. The 1.6L Vanette model is rated about 33mpg on the older 10-15 test cycle. Even if designed for E100, fuel economy will be lower for an ethanol version. The FCEV version has a 30L tank, and go over 600km(twice the EV model's Japanese range). Assuming those are from an easy test cycle, 46mpg is still an improvement.

The SOFC in the van is just rated 5kW; the Mirai's is 114kW. The van kept the the full 24kWh of battery. So it likely runs the fuel cell at a steady, efficient rate. Sounds like ethanol is too big to be reformed within the fuel cell itself, but Nissan uses waste heat from it to help power the reformer.
https://www.bio.org/sites/default/files/1030AM-Mikio%20Matsumoto.pdf

 

Does the ethanol vehicle account for greater production costs due to the corrosivity nature in their fuel systems?

 

If there are greater costs, every vehicle since 1992 already has those costs accounted for.

These days Only lawn mowers and leaf blowers aren’t fully ethanol ready (due to wintering issues)

 

Years' ago I heard a US flex fuel increased the price by a $100; mostly in replacing parts of the fuel system with stainless steel. Unless straight gasoline fuels and cars are still available in Brazil, that cost will be on all cars, including hybrids.

Which is probably why Nissan would prefer 110 proof ethanol as fuel, and that is what they plan for any SOFCEVs that are shown off in Japan. It defeats the "infrastructure already in place" pro of testing in Brazil though. Still easier and cheaper than hydrogen.

Note, some solid oxide fuel cells can use CO as a fuel. I didn't have any luck finding technical details on Nissan's system, so can't say that could be possible with this system.

 

For flex fuel - e100 vehicles should typically cost about $100 more for different parts that won't corrode, and higher volume fuel pump and injectors. M100/e100 - e0, maybe $200 to account for the lower energy and likely water in in system, that needs to work if a mix of e0 is added to a partial tank.

C2H50H + 3H2O -> 2CO2 + 6H2
6H2 + 3O2 -> 3H2O

Its pretty straightforward. The water can be in the ethanol tank, a separate tank, or reused from reaction in the fuel cell or ... a combination of all three. I believe nissan is using a combination of water in the tank + water vapor from the fuel cell reaction in the reformer. No matter what type of fuel cell, water is used (either in the cane or corn or in reformation of methane) to produce some of the hydrogen.

For methanol
2CH3OH + 2H2O -> CO2 + 6H2
6H2 + 3O2 -> 6H2O

My guess is nissan with solid oxide fuel cell will have plenty of water vapor energy to drive the reformer reaction. The big question though is in a phev like the nissan, how much does that fuel cell buy you versus a generator?

Compare Side-by-Side


My guess is unless you can reuse the heat from the fuel cell to drive a low temperature reformer.

California now has 33 hydrogen fueling stations for 4,200 fuel-cell cars so far
Toyota Clings to Hydrogen Bet While Electric Sales Soar - Bloomberg

One thing is sure the promises of low priced hydrogen infrastructure have all failed. Methanol in china and ethanol in brazil have established low priced infrastructure. If low carbon hydrogen gets cheap, it will be cheap to make methanol from it and CO2 and electricity. That won't be as efficient as the hydrogen, but it seems silly to bet on it today.

 

Not today, but not all the development work can be done in a lab.

At less than 20% of the output of the fuel cell in the Mirai, this SOFC is likely cheaper. It does use waste heat for the reformer. Then Nissan is taking a holistic approach to their EV design. Start with a BEV, and then add a ICE in series, or fuel cell if it becomes feasible in the future, for vehicles that can't be limited by a plug alone. This test FCEV van wasn't, but could have very easily have been a plug in with the 80 or whatever miles grid range the BEV model has.

A PHEV is going to be the better solution at this time, but we don't have an example of a ethanol powered one for direct comparison.Toyota Brazil has to do flex fuel conversion of the Prius for their market. So the efficiency could drop more than just switching ethanol alone would do.

 

It is easier to build more efficient ethanol cars than gasoline or flex fueled. A flex fuel version would be easier in the hybrid camry than prius because it uses di and higher effective compression. A flex fuel prime might be much better off with a 1.5 3 cylinder 14:1 compression atkinsons engine removing 1 cylinder from the new 2L. If it can do 12:1 effective with e10, it would probably be able to do 14:1 effective with e100. More ethanol also means less need for aggressive cooled egr, maybe that could even be removed for brazil.

 

My criticism of flex fuel engines since driving the 2000 Ranger was that regular octane fueled engines were used as that basic. The low compression rating results in throwing away some of the energy in the fuel. Ethanol engines can be efficient, but Toyota and Honda don't appear to be in much of a rush to offer a PHEV with such a one. If the trials go well, a flex fuel Prius might become available in a year or so in Brazil.
Toyota reveals world-first flexible fuel hybrid prototype in Brazil - Automotive World

 

I was in Brazil recently and the engineers in my meeting said that no one buys ethanol for their flex fuel vehicles as the lower gas mileage makes the cost of fuel higher than using gasoline.

JeffD

 

Yeah, well there is that.
.

 

Brazil is a small car market. My guess is no car company puts much work into making any flex fuel engine there the best it can be. Most likely they do what they do for them in the US; the minimum at lowest cost. So running an ethanol blend in the engine just works out as worse as putting premium gasoline in a car that calls for regular. The fuel economy by volume drop isn't just from ethanol's lower energy density, is also because these modified gas engines can't take advantage of its octane rating(AKI) of 105.

This design laziness could prove a benefit for ethanol powered fuel cells there, or at least prod engine manufacturers into making true ethanol ones.