Toyota will start producing fuel cells of a new generation in Brussels this month. For the time being it is a pilot, but the factory in Zaventem is ready to scale up, the Japanese manufacturer.

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The future of the automotive industry has become more divided in recent years about the future of hydrogen in passenger cars. Many large car manufacturers have put fuel cell technology on hold and are only aiming for battery-electric passenger transport. At the other end of the spectrum are Toyota, Hyundai and Honda, who see good breeding in it. The future of hydrogen technology in heavy road transport is hardly under discussion. After all, if you have a large truck with sufficient battery capacity to reach the range, far too much of the charging capacity is lost. In addition, it can play an important role in shipping and even in aviation, opportunities exist for fuel cell applications.

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At the annual Kenshiki Forum, recently held in Brussels. we also spoke with Thiebault Paquet, who is responsible for the development of hydrogen technology at Toyota Motors Europe, and Ferry Franz, who is in charge of the joint part of hydrogen technology at TME.

According to Franz, the road to CO2 neutrality in Europe is moving faster than in most other regions and fuel technology is an important tool in this regard. “It is even one of the keys to achieving the Green Goal by 2050,” he says. “The European Union therefore needs forerunners to develop commercial applications and yet green applications. Think of green hydrogen, energy storage and CCS (see box, ed.). An important spearhead in this respect is setting up a good infrastructure for the future of hydrogen, so that no more than 150 kilometers between two hydrogen filling stations on European routes will be allowed.”

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Paquet document that Toyota wants and can play an important role. “We have been working on fuel cell technology since 1992,” he says. “That year we had 177 cars with a fuel cell, between 2014 and 2017 there were 700 a year and since 2020 we have made 30,000 cars on hydrogen every year. We have previously reformed the Mirai’s fuel cell into compact modules that can be used for all kinds of applications. We have now started building the second generation of our fuel cell. It is lighter and more compact, and the energy density has improved by 54 percent. These properties make the new fuel cell more versatile. In addition, we build it in two different shapes, a cube and a lower rectangular shape,” says Paquet. He explains that this choice is for many important things. For example, the cube is better placed in a truck, the flatter shape is more suitable for installation in a bus.

Because Europe is working so energetically with hydrogen, Toyota is also developing its new fuel cell here, to be precise in Zaventem, near Brussels. “It’s not just about being able to produce near actions, we can also better assist in the combustion of our fuel cells in their products that way. In addition, we can better recognize budding. For now it is a pilot, but we are ready to ramp up production at the right time.”

Hydrogen without a fuel cell

In addition to a fuel cell, you can also use hydrogen in a fuel engine. We’ve known since the Hindenburg that we want it to burn excellently. Toyota already tried that in a racing version of the Corolla and now it also has a taste Yaris converted, which at least runs on hydrogen instead of petrol. Although it is not CO2-neutral, burned hydrogen is cleaner than petrol. Lexus is also experimenting with this technology in the ROV concept.

Grey, blue or green hydrogen

Hydrogen is produced by splitting water (H2O) into oxygen (O2) and hydrogen (H2). This process requires (electrical) energy. The oxygen goes into the atmosphere, the hydrogen is stored. Later (and older if necessary), hydrogen in a fuel cell can again combine with oxygen from the air in water. This process releases electrical energy. The only fuel cell is water, which is ideal, but it requires some nuance. The extent to which hydrogen is CO2-neutral depends on the way in which the energy that goes into it at the beginning of the chain is generated. At the moment this is still with coal or gas-fired power stations that emit CO2, in those cases we speak of gray hydrogen. When these power stations engage in CO2 capture (CCS, carbon capture and storage, the released CO2 is captured and kept out of the atmosphere by means of underground storage), we speak of blue hydrogen. When the hydrogen is produced by electricity generated with sustainable resources, such as wind turbines, solar panels of tidal power stations, we can call it green hydrogen. According to critics, it is still not necessarily completely green, because the hydrogen does not have to be transported from the production site to the refueling location.