The Environmental Engineering Hub

While Nissan and Tesla have put their money on electric vehicles with lithium-ion batteries, Toyota has bet on hydrogen fuel cell technology and plug-in hybrid vehicles. In fact, Toyota plans to ramp up production of hydrogen vehicles while cutting production costs. The Toyota Mirai was introduced in 2014 and was the first commercially available, mass-produced sedan to run exclusively on hydrogen fuel. In May, Toyota announced plans to increase ten-fold its production of the Mirai from 3,000 in 2017 to at least 30,000 by 2020. Unfortunately, the car has high production costs and starts at $60,000. Due to limited production, the car is made by hand, adding costs. Hydrogen vehicles also contain platinum, a precious metal nearly 56,000 times more expensive than steel. Toyota plans to reduce the platinum in the hydrogen fuel stack to save money. Toyota began to invest in hydrogen technology in the 1990s instead of battery-powered electric vehicles. “Toyota is c

Porous and electrically conductive material is the kind of material that is used for gas diffusion backings. Usually, the gas diffusion layer is single or composite, and the last means that there is a junction with a micro-porous layer. Water management and electrical properties can be improved with a treatment composed of fluoropolymer and carbon black . Diffusion of the reactant gases to the membrane/electrode assembly are improved with these material types. The structure is made it so that it spreads out the gas to maximize the contact surface area of the catalyst layer membrane. Carbon cloth and carbon paper are the most usually used GDL materials. The purpose of the GDL is to limit the amount of water that reaches the membrane/electrode assembly. Additionally, it helps with the removal of liquid water from the cathode side to prevent excess flooding. One required characteristic for this layer is that it has to be water-proofed so that the layer does not get clogged with wat