An Allentown company’s hydrogen fueling technology is becoming more prevalent in distribution centers around the country.
For the last two decades Air Products and Chemicals has developed technology for using hydrogen to run vehicles. The firm’s main goal was to power cars without gasoline. And Air Products has provided hydrogen fuel cells for buses in London and the San Francisco area, among other places. However, the company expects its machinery to take off more quickly in warehouses and distribution facilities, where it’s already being used to run more than 750 vehicles throughout the United States.
“You go into one of these larger distribution centers and they would have 200 of these machines running around,” says Bruce Luff, Air Products’ business development manager for hydrogen energy systems.
Essentially, Air Products has developed a way for forklifts and other vehicles to run on hydrogen fuel cells instead of lead-acid batteries. Most distribution facilities have a central hydrogen filling station, although Air Products is looking to expand to more small facilities in which pipelines would lead to different buildings from a central storage tank. Either way, the hydrogen is converted into gas so it can power a vehicle.
Air Products has provided hydrogen fueling systems for places including a Pottsville warehouse for the Wegmans grocery-store chain. It’s also recently been installed at a military distribution center near Harrisburg and a Kimberly-Clark facility in South Carolina.
Source: Bruce Luff, Air Products and Chemicals
Writer: Rebecca VanderMeulen