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33 AutoData | March 2018 Where do we find fuel cell powered car fueled with ethanol? Ask at the Ipiranga gas station the researches. The Brazilian branch looks forward to the next steps of the matrix for the project. According to Ricardo Abe , Nissan’s en- gineering manager, the technology is the ideal for developing countries that already use ethanol - that is, Brazil fits like a glove. “It is one of the alternatives under stu- dy by Nissan for the future, which will be electrified. The advantage of using SOFC is its ease of operation in countries that do not have a ready-to-build structure for electric vehicles.” For now, the reformer, the equipment that separates hydrogen from ethanol, is one of the system’s biggest technical challenges. “Currently it occupies part of the useful area of the vehicle, and we are trying to reduce its size to provide better practical use.” TWENTY KILOMETERS PER LITER The prototype already obtained satis- factory levels of autonomy: it covered six hundred miles with thirty liters of ethanol, in otherwords, it obtained a mark of twenty km/l. Besides the van another prototype of Nissan with SOFC technologywas tested in Brazil. “The vehicles were instrumen- ted and as the country has availability of ethanol in any place, we supply and we roll in many conditions. These data were recorded and shipped to Japan, which nowprocesses information and continues the development, as well as all fuel parts, ethanol recognition and system durability.” There is no exact definition of when a large-scale commercialization of the tech- nology could begin, but it will certainly be after 2020. “It is not by technical innovation alone. We rely on the entire supply chain and system suppliers to make it com- mercially viable,” says Abe. He believes, however, that “within the matrix there are several projects under development and we believe that this is the easiest to reach Brazil one day.” A study about SOFC at the Federal Uni- versity of theABC, or simply UFABC, found Disclousure/Nissan a way to eliminate the reformer inside the system. But the professor responsible for the research, Daniel De Florio, regrets that no automaker has shown interest. For him, this is due to a gap in the ad- vanced research and engineering systems in Brazil, since in this field the works have been mostly carried out by the manufac- turers’ headquarters. UFABC research has been conducted since 2006 in collaboration with IPEN- -USP and the French government. “We have recently shown that the reformer in not needed, which implies a better use of the energy generated by ethanol. This concept is known as the Solid Oxide Fuel Cell to direct ethanol or Direct-Ethanol SOFC.” The operation occurs through in- ternal reforming or direct oxidation: “Some characteristics of SOFCs such as operating temperature and anode materials, the fuel electrode, play the role of the reformer”. For the professor, “this is a research in which Brazil is well ahead, since we are the second largest producer of ethanol in the world and ours, unlike what happens in the United States, does not compete with the food issue.” For De Florio the concept itself is new. “A few years ago we talked about SOFC just for stationary power generation. Until recently therewas a convergence that the low-temperature fuel cells would be used. Toyota’s Mirai was based on this techno- logy. But it needs to be fueled with pure hydrogen, which dificulties its amplitude in the Market.”