Basic study on fuel-cell-hybrid-electric-vehicle fueled by sodium borohydride

Fuel cell hybrid electric vehicle (FCHEV) is strongly attractive as a zero emission vehicle. However, FCHEV has not been used widely by current state. One of the reasons is the construction cost of infrastructure such as hydrogen gas station is too expensive. As a solution, several high-pressure hydrogen gas tankless FCHEVs have been proposed. One of them is FCHEV fueled by sodium borohydride (NaBH₄). This paper shows advantages and disadvantages of NaBH₄ at using this material for FCHEV as the fuel. Moreover, a novel hydrogen gas supply system fueled by sodium borohydride for fuel cell is proposed. In addition, the specification and drive characteristics of the micro FCHEV that is fueled by hydrogen gas from a tank and is constructed to compare with hydrogen gas tankless FCHEV is reported.