: HORIBA India, an arm of Japan's analytical equipment and measurement solutions provider HORIBA Ltd, on Tuesday said its hydrogen internal combustion engine test bed facility in Pune has gone on stream. The company which invested over Rs 100 crore in setting up HORIBA India Technical Centre (HITC) launched in 2016, said it has pumped around Rs 30 crore into establishing the Hydrogen Internal Combustion Engine (H2-ICE) test bed facility. The facility has an engine testing capacity up to 380KW, meeting the Indian commercial vehicle segment, HORIBA India said. "This new facility will not only expand the business avenues but would also contribute significantly to the global vision of achieving carbon neutrality, decarbonisation and sustainability. "The establishment of this hydrogen internal combustion engine test bed facility is going to be a significant step towards a sustainable tomorrow and plays a crucial role in India's green energy revolution," HORIBA energy and environment executive corporate officer, George Gillispie said. HORIBA has three manufacturing facilities in India -- Chakan (Pune), Nagpur (Maharashtra) and Haridwar (Uttarakhand).

In an interesting development, it looks like the world’s largest automaker firmly believes that Hydrogen is the future of the automobile industry, not electric vehicles. While Toyota isn’t by any means shutting down their EV operations, they’re cutting back production by about 30% due to low demand while doubling down on their hydrogen fuel projects. In fact, Toyota already has a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle (FCV) that’s currently in its second generation and is available for sale in Japan, the United States, and a number of European countries. Like an EV, the car has an electric motor but that’s where the similarities end. The Toyota Mirai’s electric motor is powered by a fuel cell instead of a battery. The fuel cell uses compressed Hydrogen gas from the car’s tank and mixes it with Oxygen from the air to create electricity and water. After a long drive, you can hit a switch near the glove compartment that says “H2O” to release the water which is the only emission in this green vehicle. So while the Toyota Mirai is without a doubt, a great car, many customers have reported the refueling process to be pretty much a nightmare. So much so that some Toyota Mirai owners have gotten together and sued Toyota for misleading them about how easy it would be to refuel these cars. In California, where the lawsuit has been filed, most Mirai owners report that the Hydrogen fuel pumps listed are either not operational, under maintenance or like in the case of Shell, have shut shop. Toyota is aware of the problems related to hydrogen fuel pumps and have still not given up on H2 cars. Earlier this year in May, Toyota revealed a liquid Hydrogen fueled engine in a race car that completed a 24 hour endurance race on schedule. Liquid Hydrogen has a number of advantages over compressed Hydrogen gas, most important of which is the fact that it can be stored at room temperature and pressure. With the engine being called a “great success,” Toyota has continued investing in the research and development of H2 fueled engines and announced a major breakthrough last month. While one of the main issues with H2 fueled cars is efficiency with the rising cost of Hydrogen, Toyota claims to have figured out a way to re-use the “boil-off” Hydrogen that gets wasted.

• The authors combined graphene, polypropylene, and nanoclay to create novel biomaterials to use in the outlet gate of brain and heart pacemakers, the component responsible for controlling and transmitting signals. Testing five different ratios of the materials, they discovered the pores within the biomaterial play a vital role in mitigating noise interference. • Two years ago, a medical professional approached scientists at the University of Tabriz in Iran with an interesting problem: Patients were having headaches after pacemaker implants. Working together to investigate, they began to wonder if the underlying issue is the materials used in the pacemakers. • "Managing external noise that affects patients is crucial," author Baraa Chasib Mezher said. "For example, a person with a brain pacemaker may experience interference from external electrical fields from phones or the sounds of cars, as well as various electromagnetic forces present in daily life. It is essential to develop novel biomaterials for the outlet gate of brain pacemakers that can effectively handle electrical signals." • In an article published this week in AIP Advances, Mezher, who is an Iraqi doctoral student studying in Iran, and her colleagues at the Nanostructured and Novel Materials Laboratory at the University of Tabriz created organic materials for brain and heart pacemakers, which rely on uninterrupted signal delivery to be effective. • "We developed nanocomposites that have excellent mechanical properties and can effectively reduce noise," Mezher said. "For pacemakers, we are interested in understanding how a material absorbs and disperses energy." • Using a plastic base known as polypropylene, the researchers added a specially formulated clay called Montmorillonite and different ratios of graphene, one of the strongest lightweight materials. They created five different materials that could be performance-tested. • The authors took detailed measurements of the structure of the composite materials using scanning electron microscopy. Their analysis revealed key characteristics that determine the noise-absorption and signal transmission of the material, including the density and distribution of clay and graphene and the sizes of pores in the material. • "Research groups are actively investigating ways to enhance the performance of pacemakers, and our team focuses specifically on the mechanical, thermal, and other properties of these materials," Mezher said. • The authors measured the signal-to-noise ratio and how the material performs with different levels of noise. They also tested the impact of the material thickness on performance measures. • "The focus of our ongoing work extends beyond simply identifying biocompatible materials for pacemakers; we aim to improve the connection between the generated signal source and the electrodes," Mezher said. "Our team is also focused on further developing biomaterials for use within the body, such as materials to enhance the performance of hearing aids."