NEWS

October 2004 Fuel Cells Bulletin7

I n B r i e f

Indian collaboration for hydrogen FCVsIn India, the oil major Indian Oil Corporation(IOC) has linked up with automaker Mahindra& Mahindra (M&M) to jointly develop hydro-gen fuel cell-powered vehicles, with the aim ofrolling out India’s first hydrogen engine in twoyears’ time, according to a report in The Timesof India. The hydrogen engines will be used topower M&M’s utility vehicles.

The deal includes testing and evaluation ofbiofuels in internal combustion engines, andtesting of hydrogen-powered and hybrid elec-tric vehicles. The companies will share therights to the outcome of their collaboration.

Ballard’s follow-on automotive contractVancouver-based Ballard Power Systems hasannounced a US$3.6 million contract with amajor global automaker, covering expandedtechnology benchmarking and evaluationactivities. The unidentified automaker willevaluate the performance and capabilities ofBallard’s current and advanced fuel cell tech-nologies. The new contract builds on the expe-rience gained by the automaker from its initialpurchase of Ballard fuel cell products last year.

Protonex names new CEOMassachusetts-based Protonex TechnologyCorporation, which is developing PEM anddirect methanol fuel cell stacks for portableand remote applications, has appointed ScottA. Pearson as its new CEO and a member ofits board. He replaces Norman Strate, who willremain on the board and as an advisor.

Pearson was previously president of Power-ware Corporation Americas, a global providerof uninterruptible power supplies.

Fuel cell buses operational in PerthThree hydrogen fuel cell buses – the only onesin the southern hemisphere – were expected toenter operation in Perth, Western Australiathis month, within the Sustainable TransportEnergy Program (STEP). Transperth will runthe buses on its Central Area Transit (CAT)route around the central business district, andfrom Mirrabooka and Morley into the city,according to The Sunday Times in Perth.

The Citaro buses, manufactured byDaimlerChrysler, are similar to those being tri-aled in European cities within the Clean UrbanTransport for Europe (CUTE) program andthe Ecological City Transport System(ECTOS) project in Iceland. The WesternAustralia government has committed A$8m(US$5.5m) to the A$10.25m (US$7.1m) trial,with the rest of the funds coming from the fed-eral government. The hydrogen will come fromBP’s Kwinana refinery.

DaimlerChrysler has also recently delivered ahydrogen ‘F-Cell’ car to German ChancellorGerhard Schroeder, for his office’s motor pool.

P+E will develop a compact, high-efficiency,sulfur-tolerant hydrogen separation membranethat will remove all impurities including the COand sulfur from the fuel stream. The system isintended to deliver the hydrogen needed tooperate the shipboard fuel cells. The contractcalls for P+E to deliver a hydrogen separationmodule to support an output capacity of 50 kW.

In March P+E was awarded a DARPA-fundedSBIR contract to develop hydrogen membranesfor the US Army for portable fuel cell applica-tions using methanol.

Contact: Power+Energy Inc, Ivyland, Pennsylvania,USA. Tel: +1 215 942 4600, www.purehydrogen.com

AMI launches retrofitSOFC testing software

Calgary-based Advanced Measure-ments Inc (AMI), which manufac-

tures solid oxide fuel cell test systems,has launched its ‘Integrity’ SOFC testingsoftware. The software package is theculmination of 15 years’ experience indesigning test software and five years’experience in the SOFC market, duringwhich it has sold more than 70 systems.

The Integrity software has many powerful,automated features which allow test engineersto run tests with a minimum of intervention.‘Our goal is to provide an option for organiza-tions who want to take advantage of a sophisti-cated commercial testing application withoutundergoing the expense of buying new teststands,’ says Len Johnson, president of AMI.

‘Organizations who had been doing their ownsoftware development were doing so onlybecause they were unable to find a commerciallydeveloped application,’ explains Johnson. ‘Theyare now realizing that a commercial applicationis not only more capable, but it is also lessexpensive than continuing to invest in in-housesoftware development.’

Contact: Advanced Measurements Inc, Calgary, Alberta,Canada. Tel: +1 403 571 7273, www.advmeas.com

Alliance to advanceVirginia Tech fuel celldiscoveries

Universities in Virginia will partner withBattelle and other industry partners,

Virginia’s Center for Innovative Technologyand Los Alamos National Lab in New Mexicoto develop Virginia Tech discoveries in a pro-gram to bridge the gap between new mate-

rials, fuel cell devices and products. Professorof chemistry Jim McGrath and Virginia Techprovost Mark McNamee have been awardeda two-year, $600 000 grant from the NationalScience Foundation’s Partnership for Innov-ation (PFI) to support the program.

The award is McGrath’s second PFI award.In 2001 the Materials Research Institute (MRI)received a two-year $600 000 grant to developefficient yet inexpensive fuel cell materials.

The MRI has developed and patented newinexpensive, efficient copolymeric materials foruse in fuel cells, as well as processes for creatingthem. McGrath’s group has developed polymer-ic films that are viable in higher-temperatureenvironments, and are conductive and strongenough to be used as advanced materials in fuelcells. They have created a process that incorpo-rates the ion-conductor at the monomer level(initial stage of synthesis) rather than after thepolymer has been formed, making the materialsmore durable and easier to create in a scaled-upmanufacturing setting. Battelle has extended itsoption on the patents until next March.

The PFI also calls for information-sharing onthe transition from lab to full-scale productionof fuel cell materials. There have already beendiscussions with GM’s fuel cell materials groupin Rochester, NY, with Motorola in Arizona,UTC Fuel Cells in Connecticut and TeledyneEnergy Systems in Los Angeles, which haveshared testing protocols for various applications.

Hydrosize Technologies of Raleigh, NorthCarolina has already scaled-up production ofseveral of the PEM materials to kg quantities,and the Polymer Technology Group in Berkeley,California has developed continuous film cast-ing. Nanosonic in Blacksburg is investigatingportable power applications of the new material.

Contact: Professor James E. McGrath, Director –Materials Research Institute, Department of Chemistry,Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia, USA. Tel: +1 540231 5976, Email: jmcgrath@vt.edu, www.chem.vt.edu

Honda uses new stack infuel cell scooter

Building on its success with fuel cellcar technology, Honda has devel-

oped a scooter powered by its light,compact Honda FC Stack, which is capa-ble of starting at subzero temperatures.

The high-efficiency, next-generation stack hasbeen made even lighter and smaller, andredesigned for use in scooters. The companyhas applied the expertise it has gained in devel-oping fuel cells for automobiles, and furtherminiaturized the system, optimizing it forapplication in scooters.

NEWS

8Fuel Cells Bulletin October 2004

The new vehicle is based on a 125cc scooter.Space has been conserved by placing the electricdrive system on the rear-wheel swing-arm, andby placing the fuel cell in the center of the vehi-cle, with auxiliary systems closely around it. Theresult is a scooter similar in size to an internalcombustion engine vehicle of the same class.

Honda will continue refining the scooter’sdesign to make it even lighter and more com-pact, to achieve the same range and offer stor-age space comparable to conventional scooters.

Contact: Honda Motor Company, Wako-shi, Saitama,Japan. Tel: +81 48 462 5467, world.honda.com/tech

DOD funding for nanotech fuel cells

Wyoming-based NanomaterialsDiscovery Corporation is to work

with the US Army Material Commandat Picatinny Arsenal in New Jersey,using nanotechnology to produce anew class of fuel cells powered byhigh-energy materials such as propel-lants and explosives. The Departmentof Defense will provide $2.5 million infiscal 2005 for the work.

The nanotechnologies developed by NDCunder this program will be used to produceportable power devices for soldiers, and enabledevelopment of miniature power supplies forfusing and arming munitions. Also envisionedare ‘self-sterilizing’ smart land mines that renderthemselves harmless after a certain period oftime. The nanotechnologies developed underthe program could be used to enable the reuseof obsolete ammunition, by converting itsexplosive components into electrical power.

Contact: Nanomaterials Discovery Corporation,Laramie, Wyoming, USA. Tel: +1 307 721 2342,www.nanomaterialsdiscovery.com

Production of hydrogenfrom sunflower oil

Researchers at the University ofLeeds in the UK have found a prom-

ising method for producing hydrogenfrom sunflower oil. The team, led byenergy engineer Dr Valerie Dupont, hasdeveloped an experimental hydrogengenerator that uses only sunflower oil,air and water vapor along with twovery specialized catalysts – one nickel-based, the other carbon-based – thatare alternately used to store and then

release oxygen or CO2 while producinghydrogen intermittently. The develop-ment was described at the recent 228thnational meeting of the AmericanChemical Society in Philadelphia.

In the prototype device, which can fit on astandard lab bench, water and oil are pumpedinto the unit and passed through a preheater tovaporize them. The mixture is broken downthrough steam reforming to generate CO2,hydrogen, methane and CO. The sunflower oilused is the same type found on grocery shelves.

The catalysts orchestrate a series of chemicalmaneuvers that ultimately result in an increasedhydrogen yield. First, the nickel-based catalystabsorbs oxygen from the air, which heats up the reactor bed. Simultaneously, in the presenceof heat, the other catalyst – a carbon-baseddolomitic adsorbent – releases any CO2 previ-ously trapped in the device.

Once the reactor bed is hot enough and allthe CO2 has been released and expelled fromthe reactor, the mixture of vaporized oil andwater is fed into the reactor chamber. The heatbreaks down the C–H bonds in the vaporizedoil, while the water vapor binds its oxygen tothe carbon, releasing its hydrogen and yieldingCO. Water vapor and CO together tend toform CO2 and H2. This overall process resultsin a cyclical production of hydrogen, explainsDupont, adding that the process can be modi-fied to allow continuous hydrogen production.‘Currently the generator is heated electrically,but in the near future all the heat necessary tocarry out the reaction of steam with oil vaporwill come from the intake of oxygen on thenickel catalyst,’ she says.

In lab studies the researchers achieved ahydrogen purity of 90%, considerably betterthan the 70% of current hydrogen generators.The byproducts of the sunflower oil transforma-tion, CO2 and methane, are generated in rough-ly equal proportions. The experimental genera-tor has not yet been used to supply hydrogen toa fuel cell, but a similar device could be refinedto equip fuel stations with large-scale hydrogensupplies, say the researchers.

Contact: Dr Valerie Dupont, Energy & ResourcesResearch Institute, School of Process, Environmental &Materials Engineering, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK.Tel: +44 113 343 2503, Email: v.dupont@leeds.ac.uk,www.leeds.ac.uk/speme/erri

CD adapco simulationtool for SOFC design

Working in partnership with theUS Department of Energy’s

Pacific Northwest National Lab (PNNL),

the NY-based CD adapco Group hasdeveloped the es-sofc Expert Systemto play an important role in optimizingsolid oxide fuel cell design.

The new es-sofc tool is knowledge-based, car-rying with it the essential electrochemistry, fluidflow, heat transfer and geometric modelingcapabilities required for advanced SOFC design.It works with the computational fluid dynamics(CFD) solver STAR-CD, as a specialized virtualdesign, prototyping and testing environment.

Typical issues that can be handled includecorrecting fuel and oxidant distributions to thestack, mitigation of excessive thermal gradientsalong with temperature prediction for calculat-ing thermally induced stresses, and manifold/flow passage optimization.

Contact: CD adapco Group, Melville, NY, USA. Tel:+1 631 549 2300, www.cd-adapco.com

Or contact: Dr Gary McVay, Deputy Associate LabDirector, Energy Division, Pacific Northwest NationalLaboratory, Richland, Washington, USA. Tel: +1 509375 3762, Email: gary.mcvay@pnl.gov,www.seca.doe.gov

Wisconsin engineersremove WGS bottleneckin H2 production

Chemical and biological engineers atthe University of Wisconsin-Madison

in the US have overcome the problemof CO limiting the efficient operation offuel cells, as well as discover a methodto capture the energy in the CO.

Hydrocarbons such as gasoline, natural gas orethanol must be reformed into a hydrogen-richgas to be useful in a fuel cell. A major, costlyand critical step in this process requires steamto be generated and reacted with CO. Thiswater-gas shift (WGS) process produces hydro-gen and CO2. Additional steps reduce CO fur-ther before the hydrogen enters a fuel cell.

Professor James Dumesic, postdoctoralresearcher Won Bae Kim and graduate studentsTobias Voitl and Gabriel Rodriguez-Rivera havebeen able to eliminate the WGS reaction fromthe process, removing the need to transport andvaporize liquid water in the production of ener-gy for portable applications. The work was pub-lished in the 27 August issue of Science.

The team used an environmentally benignpolyoxometalate (POM) compound to oxidizeCO in water at room temperature. The com-pound removes CO from gas streams for fuelcells, and also converts the energy content ofCO into a liquid that can subsequently be usedto power a fuel cell.