Assessment of a Hydrogen-Fueled Heavy-Duty Yard Truck for Roll-On and Roll-Off Port Operations

The port-logistic industry has a significant impact on the urban environment nearby ports and on the surrounding coastal areas. This is due to the use of large auxiliary power systems on ships operating during port stays, as well as to the employment of a number of fossil fuel powered road vehicles required for port operations. The environmental impact related to the use of these vehicles is twofold: on one hand, they contribute directly to port emissions by fuel consumption; on the other hand, they require some of the ship auxiliary systems to operate intensively, such as the ventilation system, which must operate to remove the pollutants produced by the vehicle engines inside the ship. The pathway to achieve decarbonization and mitigation of energy use in ports involves therefore the adoption of alternative and cleaner technology solutions for the propulsion systems of such port vehicles. This paper presents the performance analysis of a hydrogen powered cargo-handling vehicle for roll-on and roll-off port operations in a real case scenario. The fuel cell/battery hybrid powertrain of the vehicle has been previously designed by the authors. On the base of real data acquired during an on-field measurement campaign, and by means of a validated numerical model of the vehicle dynamics, different mission profiles are defined, in terms of driving and duty cycles, in order to represent typical port operations. A rule-based energy management strategy is then used to estimate the energy and hydrogen consumptions required by the vehicle and to assess its suitability to accomplish the defined target port operations. Outputs from this study show the potential of the proposed solution to take the place, in a foreseeable future, of conventional Diesel-engine vehicles, today commonly used in port logistics, towards a zero-emission scenario

Experimental and theoretical analysis of H2S effects on MCFCs

One important advantage of MCFCs is the possibility of using different fuel gases (natural gas, coal gas, biogas, landfill gas, etc.). However, these fuels contain impurities that can damage MCFCs, and, of these, sulphur compounds seem to be the most harmful, even at low concentrations. The aim of this work is to test the effect of different H2S compositions on operating variables, investigate the relationships, propose phenomena reading and obtain new information to define tolerance limits. In particular, chemical, electrochemical and physical poisoning mechanisms were taken into account, trying to evaluate their importance studying the effects of exposure time, temperature and current density on MCFC performance when H2S polluted anodic gas is fed. To support the investigation, experimental tests were performed at the Fuel Cell Research Center laboratories of KIST (South Korea) and a theoretical analysis was also proposed to suggest operating strategies, for example showing how high current density or temperature values can emphasize the negative effect of poisoning. The results obtained gave new suggestions for approaching data interpretation, confirming the possibility of using MCFCs when a number of ppm of H2S is present in the feeding fuel