Environment and Energy

One of the main challenges in developing commercially viable fuel cell-powered vehicles is increasing the range the vehicles can travel between refuellings. To this end, NRC scientists have developed an electrochemical hydrogen compressor, seen here being assembled. The technology uses electricity to compresse hydrogen up to 10 000 psi, thus increasing the amount of hydrogen that can be stored in a vehicle. Importantly, the compressor has no moving parts. This means less noise and potentially lower maintenance costs and better performance compared with existing hydrogen compressor technologies.