A highly efficient low-cost hydrogen combustion engine and fuel tank is to be developed by the University of Melbourne and industry collaborators Ford Australia and Haskel Australia.

The $3 million project is supported by a $1.2m State Government grant from the Energy Technology Innovation Strategy (ETIS) in the Department of Primary Industries.

Project leader Dr Michael Brear (Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, University of Melbourne) says the aim of the project is to help make hydrogen “a real alternative to fuels that emit carbon dioxide”.

“Ultimately this will open up a whole new market for not previously developed low-cost fuel efficient hydrogen-powered vehicles,” he says.

The University has conducted research into advanced, hydrogen-powered engines under the leadership of Professor Harry Watson (Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering) for well over a decade.

The hydrogen engine research – for the past five years a cross Faculty project – brings together the expertise of Dr Brear, Dr Chris Manzie and Professor Harry Watson (Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering), Professor Will Ducker (Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering) and Professor Dragan Nesic (Electrical and Electronic Engineering).

Dr Brear says a goal of the newly funded project is to build a Victorian-manufactured engine that should achieve the world’s highest efficiency for a hydrogen-fuelled internal combustion engine.

He says hydrogen is seen as a transport fuel of the future because its reaction with air does not produce carbon dioxide, a major cause of climate change.

Many proposed hydrogen fuelled vehicles, however, are viewed as excessively expensive and impractical due to limited compression and storage capacity.

“Existing storage methods such as pressurisation of hydrogen to 350-700 atmospheres, are excessively large, very heavy or unaffordable and do not show a clear path to meeting automotive requirements.

“We will investigate a novel approach to high density storage of hydrogen at pressures that allow use of conventional storage equipment.”

He says much of the research will be conducted within the University’s recently formed collaboration with Ford – the Advanced Centre for Automotive Research and Testing (ACART) – on both the University and Ford premises.