Nissan Develops First In-House Fuel Cell Stack and High-Pressure Hydrogen Storage System

Tokyo February 21, 2005;(JCNN) - Nissan Motor Co., Ltd., has announced that is has designed and developed its first in-house fuel cell stack, as well as a new high-pressure hydrogen storage system. The new technologies significantly improve the performance required of fuel cell vehicles (FCVs), including acceleration and driving range.

Nissan's fuel cell stack adopts a newly developed thin separator that narrows the cell pitch by 40% compared with Nissan's previous stack which was provided by an outside supplier. At the same time, the plumbing components inside the stack case have been integrated, and the peripheral control devices have been built into the case to achieve a substantial reduction of size and improvement of performance. As a result, Nissan has succeeded in increasing power output while achieving a more compact design than the previous stack. Nissan's new stack can be reduced in volume to approximately 60% of the previous stack while providing the same level of power.

The storage system has been certified by the High Pressure Gas Safety Institute of Japan (KHK) as a 70 MPa high-pressure hydrogen storage cylinder.

The new high-pressure hydrogen storage cylinder is made of an inner aluminum liner and an outer shell of several wound layers of a high-strength, high-elasticity carbon fiber. The winding pattern of the sting-like carbon fiber has been optimally designed to achieve high strength for withstanding 70 MPa of pressure.

Nissan is engaged in wide-ranging research and development activities aimed at popularizing the use of FCVs and has been conducting public-road driving tests in Japan since 2002 using prototype FCVs approved by the Minister of Land, Infrastructure and Transport. Nissan began leasing its X-TRAIL FCV to a limited number of customers, starting with oil refiner Cosmo Oil Co. in March 2004.