DoE announces US$15.3m for hydrogen vehicles

WASHINGTON D.C., USA, August 22, 2008. The US Department of Energy (DoE) has selected 10 cost-shared hydrogen storage research and development projects to receive up to US$15.3 million over five years, subject to annual appropriations.

“Researching and improving the use of hydrogen and fuel cell technologies in our vehicles is a long-term priority for the US,” says Under Secretary Clarence H. Albright, Jr., at DoE. “With continued investment, hydrogen holds the potential to help fundamentally change the way we power our cars, homes, and businesses.”

The funding comes under the DoE’s Hydrogen, Fuel Cell and Infrastructure Technologies programme designed to help enable the long-term maturation of hydrogen technologies.

The selected projects seek to develop hydrogen storage technologies to enable fuel cell vehicles to achieve longer driving range and performance, with particular focus on extending the driving range to beyond 300 miles (≈480km) within packaging and cost constraints.

The projects include development of novel hydrogen storage materials, development of efficient methods for regeneration of hydrogen storage materials, and approaches to increase hydrogen binding energies to enable room temperature hydrogen storage.

They will be part of DoE’s National Hydrogen Storage Project which also includes three centres of excellence and other independent projects.

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