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  • Tata Motors & ISRO Develop India's First Fuel Cell Bus

    Kaustubh Katdare

    Administrator

    Updated: Oct 25, 2024
    Views: 1.6K
    India's leading automobile maker, Tata Motors and the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) have jointly developed India's first fuel cell powered bus, after several years of research. The final model of this bus that uses hydrogen as its main fuel was demonstrated to public at ISRO center in Mahendragiri in Tamil Nadu, last Sunday. Hydrogen stored in the tanks at the top of the bus is used by the engine and it creates zero emissions. Which means this bus doesn't cause air pollution.

    Fuel-Cell-StarBus​

    The hydrogen cells are a spin-off the cryogenic technology which ISRO has been working on for the last few years. ISRO's expertise comes handy in implementing Liquid Hydrogen to power the engines, while Tata Motors has decades of experience in developing public transport buses. For the fuel cell bus project, ISRO developed special specifications for all the components and also the general specs of the bus.

    V Ghana Gandhi, the lead of the technical team that worked on the project informed that Tata Motors and ISRO had signed an MoU back in 2006 to work on an automobile that will use hydrogen as a fuel and cause zeo polluting emissions. Gandhi is a Padmashree awardee and a retired ISRO scientist. He says that this is a leap for automobile industry for the future transportation. The project also received contributions from Department Of Scientific & Industrial Research (DSIR) and PESCO aka Petroleum and Explosives Safety Organisation. The team informed that all the safety precautions have been implemented in the bus they designed.

    Indian Government has set a guideline for the automobile companies to develop hydrogen powered vehicles ideal to handle the transportation requirements of the future by 2015.

    The bus was entirely developed in the premises of Tata Motors Research Center (TMRC). The Tata Motors engineering team had designed and developed the Fuel Cell Power System (FCPS) for the Bus starting from 20 KW to 120 KW with help from ISRO. Several trial runs were made and periodic testing was done to make sure that the things run as intended.

    We've no knowledge about how long will it take for that Tata Motors and other players in the bus manufacturing segment to introduce the commercial variants of the prototype they demonstrated. We'd believe it'll take a few more years before these vehicles can hit the roads.

    We'd like to ask our users about the commercial angle of this project. Do you think Hydrogen powered vehicles will can be operated on a limited budget so that the ticket prices for the passengers don't skyrocket?

    Via: #-Link-Snipped-#
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  • Anil Jain

    Member • Aug 1, 2013

    Few things I would like to know:
    - Price of the fuel
    - Availability of the fuel
    - I am sure the fuel will not be available very soon in all the parts of India, so does that means this bus will be based on hybrid technology?

    -CB
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  • Prashant Munshi

    Member • Aug 1, 2013

    Using Hydrogen as fuel has a long been a cherished dream. It does not create pollution at the point of use. What about pollution at the time of generating hydrogen? Are there any methods known which will generate hydrogen without causing pollution? Sometime back there was a news in scientific circles that they have found some algae which produce H2. Most methods currently used are based on electrolysis and which requires electricity, generation of which in itself a significant contributor to pollution.
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  • Ashraf HZ

    Member • Aug 1, 2013

    Prashant Munshi
    Sometime back there was a news in scientific circles that they have found some algae which produce H2. Most methods currently used are based on electrolysis and which requires electricity, generation of which in itself a significant contributor to pollution.
    We've talked about algae on CE a couple of times. Hows the viability of producing/cultivating algae in India?

    tagging #-Link-Snipped-#
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  • Kaustubh Katdare

    Administrator • Aug 1, 2013

    Well, that is something we talked about when talking about 'Electric Cars'. The overall emissions generated while generating electricity to charge the EV batteries would be much more. So sometimes, it all looks like a marketing gimmick to me. I may be wrong though.

    We either need something that does the job on solar power or just put some geothermal energy to use.
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  • Ramani Aswath

    Member • Aug 2, 2013

    I have interacted a bit with the scientists from the ISRO side while working at Trivandrum on some other issues. All that the item claims is that the bus runs on hydrogen fuel cell. Being a primary cell, it cannot be recharged and so no batteries. ISRO's role is only to the extent of developing the cryogenic storage of the fuel, which being liquid Hydrogen occupies less space and does not need pressure vessels, which are a hazard especially for hydrogen.
    The fuel cell itself appears to be a TATA effort with ISRO assistance.
    There is no mention of how the hydrogen itself was produced. I doubt if the problem of producing Hydrogen in bulk was addressed in this development. The project was more on the storage of fuel on board and the prime mover.



    India has more than 300 days/year of good sunshine. Also growing algae is no major problem.
    [​IMG]


    (#-Link-Snipped-##-Link-Snipped-#)
    In the above scheme, the photosynthetic reaction produces algal biomass, hydrogen and oxygen. If the Hydrogen is liquefied then it can be stored and delivered to the vehicles.
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  • Jeffrey Arulraj

    Member • Aug 2, 2013

    This is tech of the Greener future Hates of to the R&D team

    Man the looks and tech marvel me a lot Will this be more effectively crunched down into lower end models we are looking at a Green revolution in vehicles
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  • Kaustubh Katdare

    Administrator • Aug 2, 2013

    #-Link-Snipped-# - Couldn't find information about the source of the Hydrogen. What are your thoughts on the commercial viability of this vehicle? Plus, will extracting Hydrogen from water be a practical solution?
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  • Anoop Mathew

    Member • Aug 2, 2013

    crazyboy
    Few things I would like to know:
    - Price of the fuel
    - Availability of the fuel
    - I am sure the fuel will not be available very soon in all the parts of India, so does that means this bus will be based on hybrid technology?

    -CB
    This is definitely worth all the experimenting! I'd also like to know what is the mileage expected with relevance to other fuels.
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  • Sarathkumar Chandrasekaran

    Member • Aug 5, 2013

    @ crazyboy,
    To answer your question,
    1)price will be definitely high
    2)availability-high but production methods cost us more
    3)Its mot an hybrid as it purely runs on hydrogen
    The use of hydrogen has not taken a sharp rise because of its cost of production.
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  • Ramani Aswath

    Member • Aug 7, 2013

    Kaustubh Katdare
    #-Link-Snipped-# - Couldn't find information about the source of the Hydrogen. What are your thoughts on the commercial viability of this vehicle? Plus, will extracting Hydrogen from water be a practical solution?
    An update:
    #-Link-Snipped-#
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