Daimler truck supplies hydrogen to large excavators

At CES last week, trucking company Nikola showed off a hydrogen-fueled semi-truck, one of the first ever built in the United States. But the struggling company with a convicted founder isn’t the only player these days that sees a promising future in large, fuel-cell-powered drilling rigs. Daimler Truck also recently announced its GenH2 electric semi. The GenH2 engines draw power from a liquid hydrogen fuel cell, and Daimler said the car will appear on German roads by mid-2024.

The company has concluded agreements with several companies that have fleet operations in the German region, where Daimler successfully tested the GenH2 prototype on the track and on public roads. Through these early road tests, the company says it has found that a fully loaded GenH2 engine has proven capable of hauling its approximately 25-ton payload over 1,000 kilometers in a single fueling.

Under the hood is a GenH2

The GenH2 truck’s fuel cell system, according to the company, provides 300 kilowatts. The truck also has a battery that can release an additional 400 kilowatts in short bursts for quick acceleration and hill climbing. The battery’s 70 kilowatt-hour storage capacity may seem small, but it is enough to recycle kinetic energy that is converted into an electrical charge via regenerative braking.

The Daimler GenH2 truck, according to the company’s initial road tests, can travel 1,000 kilometers with a full tank of liquid hydrogen. Daimler truck

Daimler, along with Linde and Air Liquide, German and French multinational providers of industrial gases and hydrogen refueling services, are benefiting from advances in liquid hydrogen storage, which offers significant advantages over the use of compressed gas.

In its liquid state, more hydrogen can be carried per unit volume than H2 at room temperature, which is a gas. As a result, the energy density is much higher, while the vehicle’s smaller tanks can still produce a greater range than is possible from gaseous hydrogen. Saving space and increasing energy density allows the truck to transport a larger payload.

At specially equipped liquid hydrogen filling stations in Wörth am Rhein and in the Duisburg area, liquid hydrogen cooled to -253 °C can be pumped into two 44 kg stainless steel tanks mounted on either side of the GenH2 semi-hull. Refueling can be completed within 10 to 15 minutes. According to the company, highly efficient insulation in the tanks keeps hydrogen below its extremely low boiling point without active cooling.

“We are also proud to provide Daimler Truck with some of the necessary hydrogen refueling infrastructure as part of the trials,” says Caroline Stancil, General Manager (EMEA) of Hydrogen Mobility at Air Products, a US company. – The industrial gas supplier participating in the project. “Our latest mobile fueling station for liquid hydrogen will be used in the project in the Duisburg area and can therefore operate under real conditions.”

Next steps for Daimler Truck

As it has done in the past with safety technologies it has led, Daimler has made the recipe for liquid hydrogen (LH2) publicly available. It is now an ISO standard. Furthermore, the automaker plans to work directly with other companies to help them develop their own liquid hydrogen refueling and fuel cell technologies. The goal is to “create a large-scale global market for the new fueling process,” Daimler said in a press release.

Daimler Truck is already working with Linde on another new process to handle hydrogen cooled to extremely low temperatures in which it takes liquid form. The automaker says this process will result in higher storage density (and therefore power) with easier refueling compared to the LH2 process.

Daimler is laying the foundation for making hydrogen a more widely available energy medium for cars. The company says it also plans to work with BP, Shell and TotalEnergies to create hydrogen fueling infrastructure for major transport routes in Europe.

Pricing details for the GenH2 truck were not available at press time. For comparison, Fleet Owner magazine estimates that half of a Nikola fuel cell costs about $750,000 — although Fleet Owner adds that incentives from the US Inflation Relief Act and California’s HVIP grants could, for some owners, cut the cost by $40,000. $ and $288,000, respectively. .