Haydale has announced that is has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Viritech, a UK-based company that is developing technologies to deliver advanced hydrogen powertrain solutions for the automotive, aerospace, marine and distributed power industries.
Haydale will provide Viritech with consulting engineering support services, including pressure vessel design, structural analysis, and material science analysis.
Viritech is said to be a world leader in the development of integrated hydrogen powertrains and, through its technical partnership with Horiba MIRA, reportedly has access to 40 major engineering facilities and over 600 engineers onsite in Nuneaton as well as MIRA’s engineering network across the Midlands. Viritech’s focus is on areas where hydrogen fuel cells offer immediate benefits where the effectiveness of batteries is compromised by mass-compounding or power, range and duration requirements increase, or long-term energy storage is required.
Haydale is utilizing its expertise in engineering solutions for hydrogen storage in tandem with its experience in nano material science to work with Viritech on the testing and development of Type IV structural composite pressure vessels for hydrogen storage.
The initial project will commence in September 2021 and is scheduled to last for six months. Subject to positive results, Haydale anticipates follow on development work both in respect of Type IV tanks but also further research into next generation Type V linerless pressure vessels.
The first application is expected to be in the Apricale Hypercar but future applications are expected to extend to HGV and light aircraft prototypes. After certification of the Type IV design, Viritech expects to enter into licensing arrangements with existing suppliers of composite pressure vessels to OEMs and Tier 1 manufacturing customers and it is anticipated that, with subsequent designs, customers will require Haydale to supply functionalized nanomaterials as part of any license agreed.