Ford just keeps on getting green

Ford Motor Corp. is getting greener and greener as they recently announced that they will install their patented Fumes-to-Fuel system at its Oakville, Ontario, Assembly Plant. According to reports, the system will convert emissions from the assembly plant's paint shop into electricity.

Reports say that it will first target an internal combustion engine before shifting to a stationary large-scale fuel cell that will improve efficiency. Meanwhile, 300 kilowatts of green energy will be coming from the fumes released by the paint solvent.

"The Oakville installation is the first of its kind in the world to harvest emissions from an automotive facility for use in fuel cell," said Kit Edgeworth, Ford's abatement equipment technical specialist for Manufacturing. "It is the greenest technology and offers the perfect solution to the industry's biggest environmental challenge traditionally."

Such development was made in order to remove volatile organic compounds (VOC) from the painting operations' exhaust air and still make it more useful. This is possible by the carbon beads responsible for capturing the VOCs and later on turned to electricity.

Another great news from Ford is their development of a new environmentally friendly anti-corrosion technology that reduces water use in automotive paint shops by nearly half, and lowers sludge production by 90 percent.

It is currently being field-tested on a small fleet of Lincoln Town Cars. It uses a zirconium oxide vehicle bath instead of the traditional zinc phosphate bath, which contains heavy metals such as zinc, nickel and manganese.