- Email: [email protected]
Proton Energy 2nd Phase NRL contract, acquires Northern Power Systems
NEWS in EVI’s fuel cell/NiZn rechargeable battery hybrid power system, being developed with the Alberta Research Council. The non-exclusive agreement with Superior MicroPowders will see SMP will supply fuel cell electrocatalysts and technical support services to EVI for its flowing electrolyte DMFC. SMP manufactures Dynalyst™ electrocatalysts for PEM, alkaline, phosphoric acid, direct methanol and metal-air fuel cell systems. Contact: Energy Visions Inc, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Tel: +1 613 990 9373, www.energyvi.com Or contact: Superior MicroPowders, Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA. Tel: +1 505 342 1492, www.smp1.com
Proton Energy 2nd Phase NRL contract, acquires Northern Power Systems Connecticut-based Proton Energy Systems has received authorization to begin Phase II of its contract with the US Naval Research Laboratory, for advanced fuel cell technology development. The company is also acquiring Northern Power Systems, a leading Vermontbased designer, manufacturer and installer of integrated onsite power systems for stationary commercial and industrial applications. The NRL-supported effort is part of the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency ‘Water Rocket’ program, and applies Proton’s technology to advanced space propulsion and energy systems. Initial contract funding for Phase II of the cost-plus, fixed-fee contract is $385 000, with the total potential contract value worth up to $4.5m. Phase II will build towards demonstration of a 1 kWe-scale prototype high-pressure H2/O2 regenerative fuel cell system, with specific design goals of reversibility, space operation, lightweight packaging, and fewer system components over state-of-the-art fuel cell designs. Proton completed Phase I earlier this year, demonstrating the ability to electrolyze water to generate hydrogen and oxygen at pressures above 3000 psi (210 bar) using its Hipress™ solid-state electrolysis cell stack design for efficient gas compression. The combination of Proton and Northern Power Systems will offer a wide array of practical energy technologies, including Proton’s advanced hydrogen generation products and Northern’s state-of-the-art renewable and fossil-fuel power systems. The combination of Northern’s application expertise with Proton’s products that convert excess and renewable power into hydrogen is expected to result in a broadened array of opportunities for the larger company.
July 2003
Contact: Proton Energy Systems Inc, Wallingford, Connecticut, USA. Tel: +1 203 678 2000, www.protonenergy.com
Research challenges theory of hydrogen absorption on catalysts A long-standing assumption concerning the way in which hydrogen molecules break apart and adhere to a catalyst surface has been overturned by research at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California. This dissociative hydrogen adsorption reaction is at the heart of the catalytic process driving hydrogen fuel cells and other industrially important processes such as gasoline reformation. Using scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) to produce an atom-by-atom contour map of the surface of a palladium catalyst, the team from Berkeley Lab’s Materials Sciences Division found that groups of at least three vacancies are required on the surface to facilitate separation of a hydrogen molecule into its two constituent atoms, each of which then occupies a vacancy. This discovery, reported in the 17 April issue of Nature, contradicts the widely held belief that only a pair of vacancies is needed to trigger hydrogen adsorption. For a molecule to break apart and adsorb onto a catalyst surface, it must find an available active site. For hydrogen absorption, as in many cases, these active sites comprise short-lived clusters of atom-free vacancies. For many years, it has been believed that an active site needs only as many vacancies as the number of atoms in the molecule being absorbed: a transient pair of vacancies in the case of hydrogen. By cooling the Pd surface to extreme temperatures to slow atomic movement, the team – led by physicist Miquel Salmeron – could use STM to visualize the formation of the vacancy clusters and their bombardment with hydrogen molecules. They observed that a pair of vacancies never absorbed hydrogen atoms, but when three or four vacancies clustered together, two vacancies in the group quickly accepted a hydrogen atom. The question of why an aggregate of three or more vacancies is needed remains to be answered by theorists, but the research team believe their discovery may enable catalyst systems for processes such as hydrogen fuel cells to be refined more quickly. Contact: Miquel Salmeron, Materials Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California, USA. Tel: +1 510 486 6230, Email: [email protected], Web: stm.lbl.gov
In Japan Breakthroughs in cheaper hydrogen extraction from natural gas Two recent reports in the Nihon Keizai Shimbun describe developments in producing hydrogen from natural (city) gas. Nagoya-based NGK Insulators has developed a filter to efficiently separate hydrogen from fuels like natural gas. The hydrogen filter can be used in fueling stations for fuel cell vehicles. NGK claims that, compared with refining hydrogen using catalysis, the hydrogen filter can reduce the equipment size by 80%. The filter comprises a three-layer ceramic cylinder – 3 cm in diameter and 30 cm long – plated with a thin palladium alloy film, through which only hydrogen can pass. NGK claims that when gas comprising just 50% hydrogen is passed through the filter, the hydrogen concentration can be raised to 99.5%. These ceramics with homogenous microscopic holes that can be plated with a palladium alloy film as thin as 2 µm, offer a significant reduction in the amount of expensive palladium used. Meanwhile, technology developed by Ishikawajima-Shibaura Machinery Company in Nagano and Professor Hideo Kameyama of the Tokyo University of Agriculture & Technology is expected to reduce the cost of extracting hydrogen from natural gas supplied to households to less than one-fifth of that using conventional technology. The industry/ academic collaboration will apply the technology to residential fuel cells in field trials next year, hoping to produce cost-effective systems by 2005 in cooperation with gas suppliers. The process uses a chemical reaction on the surface of an 80 µm thick stainless-steel sheet covered with a 40 µm layer of aluminum oxide containing nickel catalysts. The researchers raised the temperature of the reaction on the sheet surface to more than 600°C from the standard 500°C, while using a material that can withstand higher temperatures. The team also modified the catalyst surface from flat to ‘spongy’, increasing the active area. The amount of catalyst is reduced by 90%, for substantial cost reductions. The new material is also highly conductive and needs less than 1 min to power up a fuel cell, compared with the more than 10 min normally required. Showa Denko to build Kawasaki H2 station Tokyo-based Showa Denko will build a hydrogen fueling station in Kawasaki by next March to supply fuel cell cars, according to the Nikkei Business Daily. The station will initially offer hydrogen created as a byproduct of caustic soda production, with later use of hydrogen produced in recycling plastic. The station will able to provide 30 m3/h of hydrogen. The company claims that it will cost as little as ¥100m (US$850 000) to build the station because existing facilities will be used.
Fuel Cells Bulletin
5
Proton Energy 2nd Phase NRL contract, acquires Northern Power Systems Connecticut-based Proton Energy Systems has received authorization to begin Phase II of its contract with the US Naval Research Laboratory, for advanced fuel cell technology development. The company is also acquiring Northern Power Systems, a leading Vermontbased designer, manufacturer and installer of integrated onsite power systems for stationary commercial and industrial applications. The NRL-supported effort is part of the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency ‘Water Rocket’ program, and applies Proton’s technology to advanced space propulsion and energy systems. Initial contract funding for Phase II of the cost-plus, fixed-fee contract is $385 000, with the total potential contract value worth up to $4.5m. Phase II will build towards demonstration of a 1 kWe-scale prototype high-pressure H2/O2 regenerative fuel cell system, with specific design goals of reversibility, space operation, lightweight packaging, and fewer system components over state-of-the-art fuel cell designs. Proton completed Phase I earlier this year, demonstrating the ability to electrolyze water to generate hydrogen and oxygen at pressures above 3000 psi (210 bar) using its Hipress™ solid-state electrolysis cell stack design for efficient gas compression. The combination of Proton and Northern Power Systems will offer a wide array of practical energy technologies, including Proton’s advanced hydrogen generation products and Northern’s state-of-the-art renewable and fossil-fuel power systems. The combination of Northern’s application expertise with Proton’s products that convert excess and renewable power into hydrogen is expected to result in a broadened array of opportunities for the larger company.
July 2003
Contact: Proton Energy Systems Inc, Wallingford, Connecticut, USA. Tel: +1 203 678 2000, www.protonenergy.com
Research challenges theory of hydrogen absorption on catalysts A long-standing assumption concerning the way in which hydrogen molecules break apart and adhere to a catalyst surface has been overturned by research at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California. This dissociative hydrogen adsorption reaction is at the heart of the catalytic process driving hydrogen fuel cells and other industrially important processes such as gasoline reformation. Using scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) to produce an atom-by-atom contour map of the surface of a palladium catalyst, the team from Berkeley Lab’s Materials Sciences Division found that groups of at least three vacancies are required on the surface to facilitate separation of a hydrogen molecule into its two constituent atoms, each of which then occupies a vacancy. This discovery, reported in the 17 April issue of Nature, contradicts the widely held belief that only a pair of vacancies is needed to trigger hydrogen adsorption. For a molecule to break apart and adsorb onto a catalyst surface, it must find an available active site. For hydrogen absorption, as in many cases, these active sites comprise short-lived clusters of atom-free vacancies. For many years, it has been believed that an active site needs only as many vacancies as the number of atoms in the molecule being absorbed: a transient pair of vacancies in the case of hydrogen. By cooling the Pd surface to extreme temperatures to slow atomic movement, the team – led by physicist Miquel Salmeron – could use STM to visualize the formation of the vacancy clusters and their bombardment with hydrogen molecules. They observed that a pair of vacancies never absorbed hydrogen atoms, but when three or four vacancies clustered together, two vacancies in the group quickly accepted a hydrogen atom. The question of why an aggregate of three or more vacancies is needed remains to be answered by theorists, but the research team believe their discovery may enable catalyst systems for processes such as hydrogen fuel cells to be refined more quickly. Contact: Miquel Salmeron, Materials Sciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California, USA. Tel: +1 510 486 6230, Email: [email protected], Web: stm.lbl.gov
In Japan Breakthroughs in cheaper hydrogen extraction from natural gas Two recent reports in the Nihon Keizai Shimbun describe developments in producing hydrogen from natural (city) gas. Nagoya-based NGK Insulators has developed a filter to efficiently separate hydrogen from fuels like natural gas. The hydrogen filter can be used in fueling stations for fuel cell vehicles. NGK claims that, compared with refining hydrogen using catalysis, the hydrogen filter can reduce the equipment size by 80%. The filter comprises a three-layer ceramic cylinder – 3 cm in diameter and 30 cm long – plated with a thin palladium alloy film, through which only hydrogen can pass. NGK claims that when gas comprising just 50% hydrogen is passed through the filter, the hydrogen concentration can be raised to 99.5%. These ceramics with homogenous microscopic holes that can be plated with a palladium alloy film as thin as 2 µm, offer a significant reduction in the amount of expensive palladium used. Meanwhile, technology developed by Ishikawajima-Shibaura Machinery Company in Nagano and Professor Hideo Kameyama of the Tokyo University of Agriculture & Technology is expected to reduce the cost of extracting hydrogen from natural gas supplied to households to less than one-fifth of that using conventional technology. The industry/ academic collaboration will apply the technology to residential fuel cells in field trials next year, hoping to produce cost-effective systems by 2005 in cooperation with gas suppliers. The process uses a chemical reaction on the surface of an 80 µm thick stainless-steel sheet covered with a 40 µm layer of aluminum oxide containing nickel catalysts. The researchers raised the temperature of the reaction on the sheet surface to more than 600°C from the standard 500°C, while using a material that can withstand higher temperatures. The team also modified the catalyst surface from flat to ‘spongy’, increasing the active area. The amount of catalyst is reduced by 90%, for substantial cost reductions. The new material is also highly conductive and needs less than 1 min to power up a fuel cell, compared with the more than 10 min normally required. Showa Denko to build Kawasaki H2 station Tokyo-based Showa Denko will build a hydrogen fueling station in Kawasaki by next March to supply fuel cell cars, according to the Nikkei Business Daily. The station will initially offer hydrogen created as a byproduct of caustic soda production, with later use of hydrogen produced in recycling plastic. The station will able to provide 30 m3/h of hydrogen. The company claims that it will cost as little as ¥100m (US$850 000) to build the station because existing facilities will be used.
Fuel Cells Bulletin
5