Experimental verification of novel hydrogen supply system on a high-pressure tankless fuel cell electric vehicle

The authors have proposed and made a hydrogen generation system for fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) and fuel cell hybrid electric vehicles (FCHEVs). The system which is called as STEP (Sodium TEtrahydroborate Power) system generates large amount of hydrogen by hydrolysis of powdery sodium borohydride (NaBH₄). In this paper, The authors constructed a prototype FCEV with STEP system, and the effectiveness of the proposed system was verified by comparison with a conventional system in experiment. Two driving patterns, which simulate the driving situations of rapid acceleration, traffic jam and constant low speed, were used in the experiment to verify the effectiveness of a FCEV with STEP system. And, the STEP system used in hydrogen pressure control is still unstable during acceleration; however, the transient characteristics of the FC output power in both system were almost same. As a result, it was understood that the proposed system had ability of hydrogen supply system as well as a conventional system.