The trash-swallowing Mr. Fusion in “Back to the Future” was pure fiction, but the flux capacitor that powered Doc Brown’s flying DeLorean is real. NASA did it. The space agency licenses it. And hydrogen-powered trucks could benefit from that.

A license like no other

“I actually have a license for the flux capacitor. How many people can say that?” Michael Kramer, the founder of the Novadev startup, told me. “The only person who has made a lot of money with this program so far is my patent attorney. He was paid a lot of money to write a document for a license with the words flux capacitor on it.”

As it did 58 years ago when it shared Apollo fuel cell technology with General Motors for use in the 1966 experimental fuel cell Electrovan, NASA is marketing its Cryogenic flux capacitor to learn from others what can be applied to space travel.

We are looking for a better way to store hydrogen

The chemistry-based technology that Novadev calls FLUXpac literally makes free-floating hydrogen molecules sticky.

“Imagine frost on a sponge,” Kramer said. “The areas between the walls of the sponge have gas in them. So the system always has gas under pressure. If you want to create more gas, you put some heat and it causes those molecules to break off and jump out as gas. The more heat you put in, the faster it goes.”

A FLUXpac is powered by liquid hydrogen, which is rapidly absorbed under moderate pressure, about 116 pounds per square inch.

“It’s not like cryocompression which is under very high pressure, where if something goes wrong, you’re spraying potentially liquid or gaseous hydrogen,” he said.

Nothing comes out when a FLUXpac is cracked because the liquid is absorbed and held in place until released by a heat exchanger using waste heat from a part of the vehicle, such as a fuel cell. Because fuel cells operate at 170 F or more, they are difficult to cool.

A second startup funded by the first

Novadev is Kramer’s second startup. It sold its first – a maker of composite structural parts for aircraft – and invested the proceeds in Novadev, initially thinking it would also supply the aeronautical industry. But then it redirected its efforts to ground transportation, specifically Class 8 trucks.

Whether it’s used to power a fuel cell or power an internal combustion engine, hydrogen is difficult to transport. The massive high compression tanks are either side saddled on a truck frame or stacked on the back of the cab.

Novadev’s idea, which has not yet been tried on a truck, is to mount the FLUXpac in the space between the front and rear wheels of a 72-inch sleeper cab, where the system would be connected to existing powertrain components. propulsion.

“We’ve been making structures and systems for transportation for a long time,” Kramer said. “We take the things we’ve developed over the years and say, ‘How do we integrate hydrogen storage into a vehicle, whether it’s a truck, a plane or a boat?'”

Asking what the truck guys wanted

With little specific knowledge about shipping, Kramer and his vice president of business development, Rick Bartz, asked Paccar Inc. what would it need to embrace hydrogen, other than short-term plans to spec the Kenworth T680 and Peterbilt Model 579 with fuel cells produced by Toyota. .

The answer: a fuel system capable of 1,400 miles on a single fill, the equivalent of 220 gallons of diesel.

“Mike and his engineering team worked on a design of this fully integrated system — pumps, valves, all kinds of things to fit in this 72-inch transom area,” Bartz said.

A long distance application is the sweet spot. Nikola and Hyundai have more hydrogen fuel cell trucks – all day cabs – running than all the OEMs combined. I travel 400 to 500 miles between fill ups. Some battery electric trucks come close to that. The Tesla Semi is already there.

“There are all these people saying they’re going to give truck operators 300 or 500 miles (of hydrogen driving range). We went to the dealers. They said they couldn’t offer a truck with that little range,” Kramer said.

“There are a lot of hydrogen people telling the truck guys what they can live with, which is great until the truck guys say it’s not what they want. The truck guys said, “If you can live in the real estate that’s between the front wheel and the back wheel, under the cab and above the ground, we love you.”

Just testing so far

Kramer is in no rush to bring FLUXpac to market. Just getting Department of Transportation certification could take 18 months.

“Putting it on a truck is secondary to doing all the testing you need to do to show you can get it certified,” he said. “I’m getting out of the airplane (industry). Building the airplane first and seeing how it goes is never a good thing.”

Verne builds his first truck with cryo-compressed hydrogen

Speaking of supercold and compressed hydrogen (referred to above), Verne has the startup completed its first Class 8 heavy truck powered by cryo-compressed hydrogen (CcH2).

The CcH2 fuel storage system maximizes hydrogen storage density, increasing vehicle range while reducing vehicle weight and storage system cost. It is a dual-fuel prototype that also runs on diesel.

The truck uses the Diesel Tech Industries Guardian Hydrogen Diesel system, an upgrade of a traditional diesel engine to allow the vehicle to run on a diesel-hydrogen mixture. Verne describes the system as a bridge technology for the trucking industry, allowing fleets to try hydrogen fueling and driving without investing in a new fleet of trucks.

Testing the truck before more commercial pilots will begin soon, Verne said.

Briefly noted…

While investor anger is all that’s left TuSimple in the US, co-founder Mo Chen remains single de facto voting voice to the sole leader in autonomous transport.

Hylion Holdings shares are up 342% from a year ago, when the startup shed a natural gas-electric powertrain to focus on itself. fuel agnostic Karno stationary generator technology.

Mack Trucks OFFERS virtual tours of its truckswith dedicated product specialists offering individual personality Mack Live Tour ride around his truck models.

Achim Puchert will succeed Karin Rådström as head of Mercedes-Benz trucks 1 Dec He will also lead the Europe and Latin America regions of the The Daimler truck brand.

Hyzon reduced its cash burn in the third quarter and started collecting money through a direct share offering and a market share sale program.

Truck Tech Episode no. 91: Perfect your training to sell Volvo’s new flagship Class 8 VNL

That’s it for this week. Thanks for reading and watching. Click Here to subscribe and get Truck Tech delivered to your email on Friday. And catch the latest Truck Tech podcast episodes and video shorts on FreightWaves YouTube Channel. Send your feedback about Truck Tech to Alan Adler at [email protected].