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2009/10/20

Public University of Navarre research team to adapt Volkswagen Polo vehicle to run on hydrogen instead of petrol

The Hydrogen Group at the Public University of Navarre (UPNA) has been handed over a Polo model car by Volkswagen Navarre. The challenge: to modify it to run on hydrogen, an inexhaustible fuel that does not produce contaminant emissions nor the greenhouse effect.

Three years ago, Volkswagen donated a Polo model car to the Hydrogen Group at UPNA. By last February the engine was already functioning on the University’s test bank, employing hydrogen as a fuel. Now one step further had been taken. “Our aim is to modify not only the engine but all the components of the vehicles so that it can run on hydrogen and independently”, explained project director Mr Pedro Diéguez Elizondo, from the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Energy and Materials.

Regarding this challenge of coming up with a vehicle running solely off hydrogen, Mr Diéguez stated, “I do not believe that we will meet any great difficulties in modifying the engine, given that we already have experience to this effect; where I think we will have bigger problems will be with the integration, in the on-board computer, of the electronic control of the hydrogen engine with the rest of the vehicles signals and controls”.

In this stage of the project, another of the novel aspects is the production of hydrogen at the University itself. “Using water and electric energy from the grid, by means of an electrolyser located at the University and property of Acciona Biocombustibles, we produce the hydrogen consumed by the engines”. This results in cost savings: to get the energy equivalent of a litre of petrol, between 4 and 5 kWh of electricity are required. Although there is a wide range of electricity tariffs, the quantity of hydrogen equivalent to a litre of petrol in any case will have an energy cost less than half a euro.

Finally, the research team will have to resolve the issue of transporting the hydrogen on board the car, an aspect which will require using cylinders of pressurised hydrogen gas and changing them when the fuel runs out.