AIDA Cruise Ship Receives Fuel Cells

With this solution, the company offers manufacturers of heavy-duty applications – especially buses, trains, trucks and ships – complete electrical energy systems from a single source for the mobility of the future. This covers complete battery to highly efficient mobile fuel cell systems, including all components, modules and subsystems necessary for their operation. The portfolio will also be extended to include integrated hybrid propulsion systems that complement the advantages of batteries and fuel cells. At the beginning of September, Freudenberg Sealing Technologies had announced a cooperation with the long-distance bus company Flixbus to test the fuel cell drive in its vehicles.

This gives Freudenberg Sealing Technologies a unique in-house depth of value creation for both batteries and fuel cells. It ranges from the separator to the cell to the complete battery system or from the gas diffusion layers to the membrane electrode unit (MEA) and the stack to the finished fuel cell. As in a standardized modular system, the systems can be put together modularly in different performance levels depending on the requirement profile. For operators, this means higher efficiency, better suitability for everyday use and advantages in terms of total cost of ownership (TCO).

In cooperation with the other companies in the consortium, Freudenberg Sealing Technologies is taking part in the project to investigate the use of fuel cells with integrated fuel reforming on board future passenger ship generations. The fuel cell provides the capability of generating energy on board. It operates with low emissions, low noise and low vibrations. The fuel cell is powered by hydrogen, which is reformed from methanol. When used as an energy source, methanol also offers good properties in terms of storage volume.

After intensive onshore tests, the fuel cell from Freudenberg Sealing Technologies is to be tested for the first time on board of AIDAnova from AIDA Cruises, built at the Meyer shipyard in Papenburg, Germany starting in 2021. For this reason, the fuel cells will also be designed to last much longer than cells used in passenger cars. Initial tests have shown that a service life of more than 35,000 operating hours can be achieved.

The project is being publicly funded by the Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure (BMVI) as part of the “National Innovation Program Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technology” (NIP).