Three Bosch engineers have been nominated for Germany’s prestigious Deutscher Zukunftspreis 2025 for creating a gas cell energy module that might rework long-haul trucking. Christoffer Uhr, Kai Weeber, and Pierre Andrieu created the system that converts hydrogen and oxygen into electrical energy, enabling vans to function with zero carbon emissions when powered by inexperienced hydrogen.
The gas cell energy module (FCPM) addresses a big environmental problem. Heavy industrial autos account for greater than one-fourth of greenhouse gasoline emissions from highway visitors within the EU, but stay important for freight transport. The expertise provides a pathway to decarbonize this sector with out compromising operational necessities.
“This nomination for the Deutscher Zukunftspreis 2025 is an impressive recognition for the Bosch group and everybody concerned with the gas cell energy module,” mentioned Dr. Stefan Hartung, chairman of Bosch’s board of administration. “It’s additionally affirmation that we’re heading in the right direction: hydrogen is indispensable for a climate-neutral world and can be a strategic enterprise discipline for Bosch.”
The FCPM represents Bosch’s most complicated system in practically 140 years of operation. Weighing roughly 500 kilograms and containing greater than a thousand particular person components, the module features a gas cell stack, hydrogen metering valve, hydrogen recirculation pump, and electrical air compressor. These parts work collectively to move water and atmospheric oxygen into gas cells for electrical energy conversion.
Quantity manufacturing started in Stuttgart-Feuerbach in mid-2023, adopted by manufacturing in Chongqing, China. The system requires minimal important uncooked supplies in comparison with batteries and matches into the house beforehand occupied by combustion engines in over 95 p.c of vans. This design permits freight firms to transition with out operational modifications whereas sustaining acquainted efficiency traits together with quick refueling instances and ranges as much as 1,000 kilometers.
A number of thousand vans geared up with the Bosch FCPM are already working worldwide. Every unit capabilities as each a bodily system and a digital twin, gathering information on temperature, stress, and put on patterns that inform second-generation improvement.
The expertise extends past trucking purposes. Bosch makes use of associated improvements for electrolyzers that produce hydrogen from water and renewable electrical energy, and the FCPM can energy ships or present electrical energy to information facilities.
The Deutscher Zukunftspreis, awarded yearly since 1997 by Germany’s federal president, honors analysis and improvement tasks primarily based on innovation diploma and potential for sustainable job creation. The 250,000-euro prize will likely be awarded in Berlin on November 19. Bosch has beforehand gained 3 times between 2005 and 2013 for piezo injectors, sensible sensors, and ultrashort pulse lasers.
