HydroHaul: Hydrogen Fuel Cell with Proton-Conducting Graphene Membrane and Regenerative Braking System for Mine Haulage Trucks

For this project, the objective was to develop a solution to decarbonize Wabtec’s mine haulage trucks. The current trucks use diesel-based engines that are harmful to the environment due to their high greenhouse gas emissions and fossil fuel consumption. After considering this initial design, as well as a seed idea presented by Wabtec with a catenary system and battery, the team decided to explore further alternative sources of energy once it was determined that the catenary system may provide too many additional costs in maintenance and initial construction. During the course of the project, the team went through several phases of design ideation, concept screening, selection, prototyping, revising, and analysis. Beginning with generating numerous designs of alternative power systems to the initial diesel-powered mine haulage trucks, these concepts were slowly refined, determining their feasibility on the bases of sustainability, economic viability, and overall practicality. Once each member of the team established their own idea, they went through a design review, where important peer feedback was received, allowing the group to conceptualize beta prototypes. The beta prototypes were constructed to make further decisions about which components should be implemented into the final design. Some of the results of this secondary prototyping process guided the team toward which materials would be most viable, how the regenerative braking system would store energy, and the functionality of the hydrogen fuel cell, among other important data. After further analysis and discussion, the group settled on a graphene-assisted hydrogen fuel cell design in conjunction with regenerative braking for the trucks — referred to as HydroHaul. From the final analysis of this prototype, it was determined that the system would only have water vapor and excess air as emissions — something much more sustainable than carbon dioxide. Additionally, despite the up-front higher capital costs and current higher price of hydrogen fuel, the precipitously dropping price of green hydrogen will make this design far more economically favorable than diesel — ultimately allowing the system to operate at hundreds of dollars less fuel per trip for each haulage truck. With this in mind, the team is proud to recommend HydroHaul as the next solution to sustainable mining.