Travelling light

Future liquid hydrogen-powered vehicles could travel over 300 miles before re-filling, thanks to the development of a modular carbon fibre tank.

Designed by

R&D arm Forschung und Technik and a team of 34 partners from European aerospace automotive and supply industries, plus universities and research institutes, the developers say the tank could be ready for commercial use in five years.

It is the result of an EU-funded research programme

, which aims to improve current high-pressure, liquid and solid hydrogen storage technologies.

Using carbon fibre meant it was possible to reduce the weight of the entire tank storage system by a third compared with current cylindrical steel tanks used in hydrogen cars such as the BMW Hydrogen 7. The tank's modular design is also claimed to be less cumbersome than cylindrical steel tanks, which take up most of a car's boot space.

The tank, which is in the shape of a rectangular block, is made up of a series of layers. The inner structure consists of tank modules that connect like Lego blocks. 'It can be scaled to any size,' said Daniel Kammerer, head of BMW's CleanEnergy communications division.