Methanol fuel cell power source for city bus

Results of phase I of a four phase program jointly sponsored by US DOE and the US Department of Transportation toward the development of a fuel cell powered urban transit bus are presented. The hybrid power source design was based on an Energy Research Corporation (ERC) methanol fueled, air-cooled, atmospheric pressure phosphoric acid fuel cell (PAFC) and a polymer-bonded nickel-cadmium battery developed by ERC for DOE electric vehicle applications. Fuel cell/battery system trade offs and economic analyses were completed along with fabrication and testing of an automatic half-scale brassboard power source. Testing of the brassboard power source verified the results of the performance analyses for the test bed bus. The technical feasibility of the fuel cell/battery hybrid system for vehicle application and the absence of pollutants were demonstrated