Nissan to deploy methanol fuel cell material handling equipment

Filed under: Manufacturing/Plants, Nissan

Nissan's Smyrna, Tennessee assembly plant will soon be cutting its CO₂ emissions and improving productivity. The plant is retrofitting 60 material handling tugs that are used to move parts around with new methanol fuel cells. The tugs are currently fitted with lead acid batteries that have to be swapped out as they run down, a process that takes a technician 15-20 minutes each. A total of 35 man-hours a day are spent just replacing batteries. The fuel cell setup uses liquid methanol as a fuel and the operators will be able to refuel the tugs themselves in about 1 minutes.



The battery technicians will be moved to other, more value added jobs and the plant will cut carbon dioxide emissions by about 300 tons annually. The OorjaPac methanol fuel cells are being provided by Oorja Protronics. The Nissan press release is after the jump.



[Source: Nissan]

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Nissan to deploy methanol fuel cell material handling equipment originally appeared on Autoblog Green on Wed, 26 Aug 2009 08:04:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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