Comments
Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh has been chosen to test a pilot project involving 50 three-wheelers to be run on hydrogen as a clean fuel, in an institute-industry and government collaboration.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s constituency and a ‘smart city’ to be developed through India-Japan efforts, Varanasi will see these vehicles fitted with a tank, that will store the hydrogen fuel in the form of hydrides. The three-wheelers will be supplied by the Chennai-based TVS Group.
The technology to produce hydrogen from water, store it and power automobiles has been developed by Benares Hindu University (BHU). The Centre for Hydrogen Energy led by O.N. Srivastava has been working for over a decade on a technique to replace anodes with nano-structured titanium dioxide as photo electrodes to maximise the extraction of hydrogen. The photo electrode is expected to increase production of hydrogen by nearly 50 per cent during the photo electrochemical process for producing the gas.
The BHU Centre has demonstrated the technology for three-wheelers which run on hydrogen, under different projects supported by the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) and the Department of Science & Technology. Currently, five autorickshaws fitted with the hydride fuel tanks, running for 70-80 km on each filling, ply in the campus.
Hydrogen is a light gas and its storage is a major challenge. It is, therefore, stored in the form of hydrides and extracted by raising the temperature. "We are studying the storage of hydrogen in some new nano materials and composite type alanates to achieve a matured hydrogen technology,” Srivastava told BusinessLine here.
The MNRE will support the pilot project. An expert committee led by K Kasturirangan (former Chairman, ISRO) had recommended eight mission mode projects. One of these is the use of hydrogen fuel and the Varanasi project will be part of it. Srivastava, who was participating in the fifth international conference on hydrogen fuel cells in Hyderabad recently, said seeing their eco-friendly nature, BHU is developing room heaters and substitutes for LPG cylinders based on hydrogen gas.
Though efforts to tap hydrogen began over a decade ago, the progress has not been as expected. Several initiatives were launched to tap hydrogen as a fuel with different applications, as well as find cost-effective ways of production and storage, with Indian Oil being a major player.
A consortia of IIT Delhi, Mahindra and Air Products US fabricated a hydrogen powered, three-wheeler called ‘HyAlfa’ a couple of years ago and demonstrated the same in Pragati Maidan. The project was funded by UNIDO.
Comments
COMMENT NOW
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.