Efforts towards carbon neutrality as well as the struggle for fuels with high performance at reasonable price are international challenges that require very strong horizontal and vertical interactions among the scientific institutes and relevant industrial companies. Hydrogen has been in the middle of interest of scientists during the last few decades as a candidate to become a superior energy carrier with the help of which we can meet the requirements of the Paris agreement. However, its implementation has to be accelerated due to the difficult economic and political situation of the 2020s.
As a response of the aforementioned challenge, the Hydrogen Technology Research Center was established in 2022 at the John von Neumann University in order to increase the number of innovative organizations with key importance that are able to improve a global hydrogen society.
By using our high theoretical and practical competences, our vision is to demolish invisible borders. Borders among countries, among students and supervisors, among laymen and specialists, among scientists with different interests, so that the new generation of the energy economy can arrive as a result of a worldwide cooperation.
We are aware that even big goals can be achieved through well-defined, targeted steps. Our ones are demonstrated here divided into 10 points that cover the fields of RDI, international contacts, contribution to national strategy and education.
Main hydrogen research areas at JvNU
Hydrogen-based energy management
Our goal is to develop an autonomous energy control of a hybrid system using Artificial Intelligence. In this project we concentrate on an energy system that consists of a battery pack, solar cells and a hydrogen fuel cell stack. I order to demonstrate the capabilities, we redesign and build a prototype vehicle, that will be suitable for road use, as it will comply with all technical legislation in its category.
Hydrogen combustion
Through measuring and optimizing petrol engines with our engine brake dynamometer equipped uniquely in Hungary, hydrogen operation is compared to that of currently used internal combustion engines. Monitoring all EURO 6 standard values with high accuracy in real time is one of our main competences. We are highly interested in learning about the combustion characteristics of hydrogen, as well as in carrying out experiments to approach the EURO 7 norm.
Hydrogen storage
We focus on type IV cylinders which have composite overwrapped polymer liners. These pressure vessels are developed and tested in our specially equipped Plastic Processing and Material Testing Laboratory as well as through international cooperations. Test cylinders are created in order to validate our material and production technology developments.
Fuel cell development
We take part in development of foam- structured flow paths of PEM-FC dipolar plates in the frame of the RRF-2.3.1-21-2022-00009 National Laboratory of Renewable Energies program. In our research simulation of flow models and electrochemical processes as well as manufacturing of prototypes are carried out. As a long-term plan, we desire to establish a laboratory of fuel cell tests and trainings.