On the 17th of November, CDTI (Centro para el Desarrollo Tecnológico Industrial) has organized a meeting between relevant stakeholders in the automotive sector from Spain and Ohio in order to find synergies between both regions.
The main objective of the event is to present the technological capabilities of the automotive sector, both from Spain and Ohio, and promote technological cooperation between Spanish and American entities in this technological field. The event has consisted of a first part in which the sector in Spain and the State of Ohio have briefly exposed and, subsequently, the technological capabilities of the Spanish and American entities participating in the event have been briefly presented.
The institutional opening has corresponded to Mr. Jonathan Bridges. Managing Director, Automotive, Steel, & White Goods at JobsOhio and Mr. Javier Ponce, General Manager at CDTI. After the introduction to the event, it has been the turn of the Spanish participants, where Cecilia Median from Sernauto has made a quick and precise overview of the Spanish automotive sector; Javier Romo from Cidaut has presented Integra Consortium, where four research and development centers, Cidaut, CTAG, Itene and i2cat, are collaborating to foster the implementation of safe and resilient automated driving solutions; Rodrigo Castiñeira from Indra Sistemas has explained their vision of mobility in the horizon 2030; José Manuel Mínguez from Ferroglobe Innovation has presented charging infrastructure solutions and new evolutions on lithium ion batteries; José Jesús Molinero, from Begas Motor has presented innovative solutions for sustainable mobility in cities oriented to the development of new power train configurations; Luke Stedke from Drive Ohio has shown success cases in the region of Ohio related to automated, connected, electrified and shared mobility; and Eric Philips from Union County and Marysville has presented the smart mobility corridor developed in the route 33.
The closing remarks were made by Mrs. María J. Fernández. Trade Commissioner. Trade Commission of Spain in Chicago. Embassy of Spain in the USA. Additional actions are planned to enhance collaborations at both side of the Atlantic to foster the integration of innovative mobility solutions.
The Spanish Railway Technology Platform (PTFE), whose technical secretariat is provided by the Spanish Railways Foundation, held its 16th Annual Assembly at the headquarters of the Spanish Railways Foundation on 17 November. This year the assembly returned to its normal on-site format. The meeting was chaired by Enrique Playán, Director of the Spanish Research Agency of the Ministry of Science and Innovation and José Carlos Domínguez Curiel, Manager of the Fundación de los Ferrocarriles Españoles.
Within the framework of the European Year of the Railway, the PTFE focused its debate on national and international R&D&I strategies, support instruments for the sector and the disruptive innovation vectors that will drive the railway mode in its consolidation as the backbone of sustainable, connected and safe mobility.
As usual in the PTFE Annual Assembly, the meeting included a specific session for the exhibition of innovative projects that ratify the capabilities of the ecosystem and have a positive impact on the competitiveness of the sector. Technology developments and new elements were presented by leading researchers and experts from different organisations.
On behalf of CIDAUT, Alfonso Horrillo contributed with the advances being made on renewable ammonia and bioethanol as hydrogen carriers in the railway. These developments will go deeper into the possibilities that the use of this energy will favour even more the energy efficiency that characterises the railway mode.
The 16th Annual Assembly ended with the presentation of the innovation strategies of two of the benchmark driving forces for the Spanish railway sector: RENFE and ADIF. The significant impact on the decline in rail transport caused by COVID-19, the liberalisation process, the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan, the development of ERJU (Europe’s Rail Joint Undertaking), etc., have led to a review of the strategies of railway operators and managers in which the commitment to innovation is going to be a transcendental factor.
The most relevant innovation strategies and projects (own, collaborative and win win) were presented by Pilar Gorriz, Renfe’s Innovation Manager and José Conrado Martínez, Deputy Director of Innovation, both of whom explained their open approach to collaboration in the development of their innovation with the sector. Their organisations have a high potential to lead and undertake competitive and business processes that involve bringing innovations to the market with a greater potential for success.
Last November, two relevant events took place at national and European level in the field of energy and hydrogen, which CIDAUT had the opportunity to attend.
On 16, 17 and 18 November, the 24th edition of the Energy and Environment Fair, GENERA, was held in Madrid. The Spanish Hydrogen Association, AeH2, organised on 16 November, in collaboration with the Spanish Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technology Platform (PTE HPC), the conference ‘Green Hydrogen: towards a sustainable energy system’, which was attended by CIDAUT.
This day began with a brief welcome by Miguel Peña, secretary of AeH2, followed by a short introduction by Javier Brey, president of the Association, who began by stating that “interest in hydrogen in Spain is growing exponentially, not only in industry, but also among the population. This interest is more than justified due to the great potential of these technologies to move towards the decarbonisation of our economy”.
Subsequently, two round tables were held with the presence of representatives from the main entities involved in the hydrogen sector. The first round table, with the participation of Carlos de la Cruz Molina, Director of Evaluation and Technological Cooperation of the CDTI, and Santiago González, Head of Renewable Hydrogen in the Department of Regulatory Framework and Corporate Strategy of the IDAE, debated hydrogen as a reactivator of the economy. The second round table was entitled: “Accelerating the development of hydrogen in Spain”. It was attended by the directors and heads of the hydrogen areas of the AeH2 promoter partners.
At European level, the European Hydrogen Week 2021 (EHW 2021) was held in Brussels from 29 November to 3 December. In this edition a hybrid organisation between on-site and online was chosen. CIDAUT attended virtually to the different presentations that took place.
The Week discussed the tremendous opportunities associated with the production and use of hydrogen and hydrogen-based fuels in the different sectors of the economy and how hydrogen will play a key role in the European Green Deal. The EHW2021 marked the public launch of the Clean Hydrogen Partnership – as the successor of the Fuel Cell and Hydrogen Joint Undertaking (FCH JU). This edition featured sessions on the future research and deployment priorities for Clean Hydrogen as well the FCH JU Programme Review Days and the FCH JU Awards. The week will also saw the third European Clean Hydrogen Alliance Forum uniting its 1500 members. Topics covered the entire value chain needed to realise the hydrogen economy, scaling-up production, infrastructure, and end-use sectors, research and innovation priorities as well as skills and education.
Unfortunately, the strike of coronavirus pandemic in Europe made impossible to celebrate a face-to-face meeting. Instead, a virtual General Assembly meeting was carried out on 21st and 22nd September.
Partners discussed the current activities and progress of the project. The meeting had as main aims to monitor and share the results of the tasks carried out in the previous 8,5 months.
Bionanopolys unites European experts in this field to transform these bio-based materials to nano-scale and, moreover, develop an Open Innovation Test Bed (OITB) environment. The aim is to manufacture innovative bionanocomposites from sustainably sourced feedstocks in Europe as well as bio-based nano-products for packaging, textile, agriculture, cosmetics, pharma or food.
For this purpose, Bionanopolys will use high lignocellulosic feedstocks for the production of cellulose nanofibers, cellulose nanocrystals, nanolignin and metallic nanoparticles on the one hand. On the other hand, high sugar content feedstocks will serve for the production of building blocks, organic acids, PHA and active compounds to create nanocapsules.
To speed up the introduction of biobased nano-enabled materials into the market by providing a Single Entry Point (SEP) for stakeholders, Bionanopolys aims at creating a network of 14 pilot plants and their complementary services. In this context, five pilot plants will focus on the development of bionanomaterials from biomass, three pilot plants are dedicated to bionanocomposites and six plants aim at manufacturing bio-based nanoproducts in order to reach a wide range of applications in different sectors. Pilot lines are going to be upgraded and fine-tuned across the entire Bionanopolys value chain.
Thereby, for the first time, Bionanopolys will create an integrated platform of technologies and scientific expertise devoted to the nanotechnology based on bio-based raw materials. This is complemented by a comprehensive portfolio of services for the development and integration of new bio-based nano-enabled products.
CIDAUT successfully completes the pilot tests on the use of ANG tanks in dual-fuel converted vehicle within ECOGATE project.
The overall objective of the ECO-GATE project (European COrridors for natural GAs Transport Efficiency) is to study efficiency improvement of conventional and renewable Natural Gas Vehicles (NGV) market in the whole Atlantic Corridor (Portugal, Spain and France), the North Sea-Mediterranean Corridor (France) and the Spanish Mediterranean Corridor (Spain) through new technologies and innovative solutions for supply logistic services, cleaner fuels, refuelling infrastructure, vehicle and components manufacturers and operational processes.
ECO-GATE is run by a consortium of more than 20 companies from Spain, Portugal, France/ Germany.
CIDAUT innovation in the ECOGATE project is focused on the storage of natural gas on-board at lower pressure than Compressed Natural Gas (CNG), specifically in the adsorbed natural gas storage (ANG). CIDAUT has carried out the characterization of the loading and unloading processes of this type of adsorbed natural gas storage systems in an experimental facility and as a final step, the adsorbent natural gas (ANG) storage technology has been validated in a pilot test on a dual-diesel van.
This system stores more energy per unit volume at the same pressure as the storage of compressed natural gas (CNG). ANG allows the use of tanks that work at lower pressure (60 bar), with the advantages that this entails: greater flexibility in the design of the tank, greater formability, lower refuelling costs, the possibility of home refuelling and greater safety. With the installation of a pressure regulator, it has been possible to refuel these vehicles in conventional refuelling stations, limiting their filling pressure to 60 bar.
Despite the decrease in activity due to covid-19, since February 2020, the vehicle has travelled more than 25,000 km and consumed about 100kg of NGV through this ANG tank.
During this period, vehicle operation, refuelling and vehicle operating conditions were monitored to enable conclusions to be drawn from this in-vehicle research.
The main results of this pilot test showed that the type of transformation of the vehicle to dual-fuel, as well as the operating conditions (mainly urban environment) lead to not very high degrees of substitution of diesel for natural gas. However, the possibility of using this type of ANG tanks in gas vehicles has been corroborated, allowing them to be refuelled in conventional gas refuelling stations, although they are best filled at slow-charge, low-pressure supply points where the energy cost of refuelling is optimised.
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Cidaut has led STEEL S4 EV European project for the last three years. The last activity of the project has been the evaluation of the crashworthiness and stiffness of the smart urban vehicle developed by STEEL S4 EV consortium, formed by IFEVS, Magnetto Automotive, Belgian Welding Institute, Lulea University of Technology and Sphera and led by Cidaut. The four prototypes built by IFEVS and Magnetto Automoyive in Italy have been sent to Cidaut’s facilities in Spain for testing. The first vehicle has been dedicated to stiffness measurement and fatigue testing. In a first stage, the torsional and bending stiffness of the vehicle have been measured complying with the results calculated by simulation and with the requirements of the project. After that and one million load cycles (equivalent to 250.000 km of hard driving) have been applied to the vehicle and the stiffness tests have been repeated again obtaining the same performance, so it can be conclude that the vehicle has resisted the fatigue test without any damage.
The destination of the other three vehicles have been harder, they have been used for different configuration of crash tests, two of them frontal and the third one lateral. All the tests made are in accordance with the current European regulation. In fact the tests performed have been, R137, full frontal crash against a rigid wall at 50km/h, R94, 40% off-set frontal crash against a deformable barrier at 56km/h, and, R95, lateral crash at 90º with a 950 kg vehicle running at 50km/h with a deformable barrier in the front.
The behavior of the structure has been totally satisfactory in the three crash test configurations, with a suitable behavior of the energy absorbing elements and with no intrusion of hard components inside the cabin. The bio-mechanic values measured in the dummies put on-board the vehicles are all of them inside the admissible parameters of the different regulations, with the only exception of chest depletion at R137 test. However, this will be solved with the use of a collapsible steering column in the commercial version of the vehicles.
The research leading to these results has received funding from the Research Fund for Coal and Steel under grant agreement nº800726.
