Hydrogen Racing Car

Students at TU Twente have been building hydrogen vehicles since 2011. Now a team from the university has constructed its first hydrogen racing car, called Apollo, and presented it at the Dutch Formula Student competition in Assen and at the Formula Student Germany competition at the Hockenheimring.

As the only team with a hydrogen racing car both in Assen and at the Hockenheimring, Green Team Twente did not take part in the races. Instead, it presented its vehicle. The aim was to arouse interest in the technology among the other teams and, in the long term, to develop a separate racing category. Apollo is the first hydrogen racing car in a Formula Student competition to be built entirely by a student team, including its hydrogen system.

A hydrogen vehicle is powered by a fuel cell in which hydrogen protons react with oxygen to create water. The MINK MH 0018 A claw compressor is used to recirculate excess hydrogen. This prevents hydrogen from being released into the atmosphere. As the exhaust gases of a hydrogen car consist mainly of water, such a vehicle is extremely environmentally friendly.

Formula Student is an international design competition for students in which around 500 universities from around the world participate. It has been held since 1979 and offers both future engineers and students of other subjects the opportunity to put their knowledge into practice.

In addition to the Green Team Twente, Busch Vacuum Solutions supports several other Formula Student teams: Joanneum Racing from Graz in Austria, Curtin Motorsport from Perth in Australia, the racing teams of the TU Delft in the Netherlands, and the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology and the TU Darmstadt in Germany.