Toyota is finally bringing electric vehicles to market, but that doesn’t mean the company has given up on alternatives. CarBuzz has just found a patent that shows Toyota is tripling down on hydrogen. Triple down? That’s right – the Japanese automaker has tried hydrogen fuel cells, and it has tried hydrogen-burning piston engines.
Now, say hello to the hydrogen gas turbine. Turbine? Like, a jet turbine? Not a jet, but similar. Gas turbine engines are common in helicopters, airplanes, and in ships like naval vessels where power is more important than fuel economy. It spins like a jet, but you don’t get forced air out the back for thrust. These are all applications where power needs range from a few thousand to tens of thousands of horsepower, and they are sized accordingly. Here’s how Toyota’s hydrogen take might work
Toyota Will Do Anything To Avoid EVs
Toyota turbine patentToyota
The patent is for what Toyota calls a gas turbine combustor. Like the name suggests, this is where the combustion happens. It’s an incredibly complex element of the gas turbine engine, and Toyota is trying to make one that can work in the low-power engines it needs. Specifically, it wants something that develops between 13 and 130 horsepower. That requires a much smaller design, and in the patent text, Toyota explains that it also needs a less complex structure.
It also needs to burn hydrogen instead of a hydrocarbon fuel. H2 is lighter than hydrocarbon fuels, and it has a higher combustion temperature. For ignition, both of those are problems, as spraying fuel and adding a spark doesn’t work the same way.
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Instead, Toyota’s invention uses multiple fuel injectors. Each one gets a flow of compressed air and fuel coming from two separate paths into the nozzle. The air and hydrogen are then thoroughly mixed before an igniter in the injector fires and lights the mixture.
Automakers Have Been Trying Turbines Since The 1960s
1963 Chrysler Turbine Car in Turbine Bronze Front Angled ViewChrysler
This approach, with multiple injectors, keeps the fuel mix as uniform as possible. That stops a locally-rich mixture from forming and increasing NOx emissions. Also, because the multiple injectors ensure that there is flame everywhere, instead of just at the main injector, dead space inside the combustor is reduced. It might not matter in a ship, but that miniaturization is a big deal in a car.
Toyota doesn’t describe how effective the new engine would be in the patent. That would come down the road, as the company perfects the nozzles and their placement, as well as the injection pressures for the fuel.
Gas turbines for cars aren’t exactly a new idea. Chrysler’s early 1960s effort might be the best-known: it put 130 hp turbines into specially made coupes. The turbine could spin to 36,000 rpm, with later versions being even quicker. The cars could run on fuels from peanut oil to tequila, but they also drank fuel at rates that weren’t acceptable even back then, and produced exhaust temperatures that were dangerously high.
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Subaru, which shares a great deal of engineering and vehicle work with Toyota, recently got a patent for its own turbine innovation. That one would use the high-voltage EREV motor to spin the turbine up instantly. Combine that with this injection idea, and the companies could have something. However, neither addresses the issue of turbine fuel consumption or hydrogen infrastructure.
CarBuzz Insight – Why This Matters:
Toyota liquid hydrogen techToyota
It’s good that companies are looking at alternative fuels, as EVs do not yet work for all applications. But Toyota’s persistence in following the path of hydrogen fuel has so far been a disaster. Low sales and massive subsidies of its Mirai FCEV, plus the tiny number of filling stations in the US and elsewhere, both push back against it. The company keeps focusing on ways to use hydrogen because its chair hates EVs, but finding ways to make and store the fuel, despite it being the most common element in the universe, has to happen first.
Patent filings do not guarantee the use of such technology in future vehicles and are often used exclusively as a means of protecting intellectual property. Such a filing cannot be construed as confirmation of production intent.
Source: US Patent and Trademark Office
