Toho Gas has built a hydrogen refueling station at its research laboratory facilities in Tokai City, Aichi Prefecture. The station supplies fuel cell-powered vehicles with hydrogen obtained from natural gas.

Automobile manufacturers have announced that they will launch the sales of fuel cell-powered vehicles by the end of this year. While expectations continue to grow for the widespread use of these vehicles, Toho Gas is moving ahead to prepare the infrastructure to supply the fuel these vehicles will need. There are two basic ways to provide the hydrogen fuel. One is to produce hydrogen by mounting equipment in each vehicle to generate hydrogen from fuels such as gasoline and methanol. The other is to produce hydrogen from fuels such as natural gas or gasoline and provide it to vehicles it at hydrogen refueling stations.

In February 2001, Toho Gas installed a hydrogen generator to produce hydrogen from natural gas, and has been developing technologies to generate and store hydrogen. The company has now installed a high-pressure hydrogen dispenser at the fueling station in order to compress the hydrogen produced by the generator and supply it to vehicles. The company plans to use these facilities to show the advantages of natural gas over other fuels, to assess the engineering technologies, and to demonstrate their safety.



Posted: 2002/10/31 11:03:18 AM
Japanese version

TAG Eco-product/Business , Global warming , Non-manufacturing industry , Transportation