Diesel fuel supports various industries ranging from shipping to agriculture, and as prices have reached record highs in recent weeks, governments around the world are eager to control the chain of effects that this has brought about.
For now, this means tapping into reserve stocks to release oil; but in the coming years, the solution may come from a new technology developed by a startup named LNK Energies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology ( MIT ).
LNK has developed a method to convert existing heavy trucks from diesel to hydrogen fuel, which not only reduces pollution and costs but also helps operators withstand price spikes caused by geopolitical instability, such as the impact of the Iran war. LNK Energies, the Chief Technology Officer, told TechCrunch: "If you look at the total cost of ownership of a Class 8 truck, it is 13% lower than that of a diesel truck." (Class 8 is the heaviest category of trucks, including large tow trucks.)
Automobile companies have been exploring the use of hydrogen for long-distance truck transportation, partly because refilling hydrogen tanks is faster than charging the large batteries required for such trucks. However, transporting hydrogen to refueling stations is difficult, and the high-pressure tanks needed to store hydrogen in the trucks are both large and expensive.
The idea of LNK is to transport hydrogen chemically attached to another compound. Liquid organic hydrogen storage carriers (LOHC) are a type of liquid that can absorb and subsequently release hydrogen gas, and related research has been quite extensive. However, they are mainly used for transporting large amounts of hydrogen gas from refineries to hydrogen refueling stations. The equipment required to separate hydrogen from LOHC, namely the reactor, has always been too large to fit onto trucks in the past.
Huynh said, "Many LOHC companies are currently using reactors that are very large, roughly the size of a container. We have reduced their size to something about the size of a mini-fridge."
Installing the reactor on a truck can also save a considerable amount of energy. When hydrogen is stored on a truck, it must be pressurized to over 11,000 psi (800 bar), which is approximately 800 times the normal air pressure, and compressing the gas to this level consumes a large amount of electricity. Since LNK's fuel carries hydrogen in liquid form and releases it on demand in the truck, this step is eliminated. LNK Energies co-founder and CEO Sayandeep Biswas told TechCrunch: “We have eliminated the expensive compression step.”
In the LNK system, after hydrogen is released from the trucks, only minor modifications to the traditional internal combustion engines in diesel trucks are required for it to burn directly. The company utilizes the waste heat from the engines to help power the on-board reactors. Alternatively, if transportation companies wish to completely eliminate combustion emissions, they can switch to fuel cells that convert hydrogen into electricity to power electric motors.
LOHC can be stored in traditional fuel tanks and transported via pumps just like diesel. “There's no need for a whole hydrogen infrastructure at all,” says Biswas, “it's just a standard diesel gas station.”
Biswas and Huynh already have a demonstration reactor in the laboratory that is capable of powering the engine of a lawnmower. The two plan to install a larger version on a commercial truck within 18 months.
The upfront costs for these trucks will be higher, but the operating costs are expected to be lower. The two believe that after manufacturing 50 to 100 trucks, they will be able to reduce the price to below $6.50 per gallon. None of the above forecasts take into account government subsidies. Biswas said, "Our goal is not to create a technology that becomes cheaper only with scale, but to make it cheaper from the very beginning."
LNK will be on stage at TechCrunch Disrupt from October 13th to 15th, Wednesday, as part of the Startup Battlefield startup pitch competition. Welcome to San Francisco to participate in the event.
