More than 50 prototypes have already been manufactured at JCB’s UK engine plant.
A team of 150 engineers is working on the pioneering initiative to develop hydrogen combustion engines. The wraps came off the brand new JCB hydrogen combustion engine - the company’s zero-carbon emissions solution for construction and agricultural equipment - at the Conexpo 2023 show in Las Vegas as part of the International Fluid Power Exposition (IFPE).
JCB Chairman Anthony Bamford is leading the project to develop JCB’s hydrogen technology. Prototype JCB hydrogen engines are already powering backhoe loader and Loadall telescopic handler machines. JCB has also made a major breakthrough in proving the wider appeal of hydrogen combustion technology by installing one of the super-efficient hydrogen engines into a 7.5 tonne Mercedes truck - a retrofit which was completed in just days. JCB has also unveiled its very own designed and built mobile refuelling bowser to take the fuel to the machines. The bowser has enough hydrogen gas to fill 16 hydrogen backhoe loaders and is able to be transported either on the back of a modified JCB Fastrac tractor or on a trailer.
The JCB engineering team has gone back to first principles to completely re-design the combustion process to work for hydrogen. In doing so they have achieved two major things: secured JCB’s place in history as the first construction equipment company to develop a fully working combustion engine fuelled by hydrogen and steered JCB towards the production of a landmark 50 hydrogen combustion engines.
As part of its hydrogen development, JCB also investigated its use in fuel cells and in July 2020 unveiled the construction industry’s first ever hydrogen powered excavator - a 20-tonne 220X. For the time being, JCB has come to the conclusion that fuel cells are too expensive, too complicated and not robust enough for construction and agricultural equipment. In challenging the JCB engineering team to think differently using technology that is around us in a zero-carbon way, the JCB hydrogen engine was born.
The unique combustion properties of hydrogen enable the hydrogen engine to deliver the same power, the same torque, and the same efficiency that powers JCB machines today, but in a zero-carbon way. Hydrogen combustion engines also offer other significant benefits. By leveraging diesel engine technology and components, they do not require rare earth elements and critically, combustion technology is already well proven on construction and agricultural equipment. It is a technology which is cost effective, robust, reliable and well known throughout not just the construction and agricultural industry, but the whole world. Source