- Email: [email protected]
Shrinking fuel channels boosts power output
NEWS carriers that they can deploy our backup power systems in demanding applications and environments’, says its marketing chief, Mark Sperry. Contact: Plug Power Inc, Latham, NY, USA. Tel: +1 518 782 7700, www.plugpower.com
Celanese monomer for Rensselaer membranes
F
uel cell research at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in upstate New York will get a significant boost, thanks to an unusual package received recently by chemistry professor Brian Benicewicz, director of the New York State Center for Polymer Synthesis at Rensselaer. The center is working with German-based Celanese Ventures GmbH, the state of New York and nearby Plug Power to develop a more economical polymer membrane for use in PEM fuel cells. The Rensselaer research is going well – so well that Celanese recently delivered nearly 90 kg (200 lb) of a special monomer used to create polybenzimidazole (PBI), which Benicewicz is studying for fuel cell use. He says the monomer is available commercially, but not in the quality and purity that is available to Celanese. He adds: ‘If we were to buy the equivalent quantity of monomer from a standard supply house – which only sells it in very small amounts – it would cost more than $400 000.’ Celanese has also contributed $2m to the R&D program for fuel cell research at the center. Contact: Professor Brian Benicewicz, Center for Polymer Synthesis, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York, USA. Tel: +1 518 276 2534, Email: [email protected], www.rpi.edu/polymers Or contact: Celanese Ventures GmbH, Industrial Park Hoechst, D-65926 Frankfurt/Main, Germany. Tel: +49 69 305 4423, www.celaneseventures.com
CWRU, Ashlawn on fuel cells for ‘smart’ munitions
C
ase Western Reserve University in Ohio is working with Virginia-based Ashlawn Group to develop fuel cells to double the shelf life of the Department of Defense’s ‘smart’ munitions. The research also positions CWRU and Ashlawn to help create much-needed R&D and manufacturing jobs in northeastern Ohio over the next five years. As the US military continues to utilize more ‘smart’ munitions, power supply issues will 10
Fuel Cells Bulletin
become increasingly critical, since current munitions batteries only last 5–10 years. CWRU’s school of engineering has developed technology that allows very small fuel cells to be built to deliver the long-range power needed to operate the munitions. Ashlawn is designing patented fuel cells with appropriate packaging to withstand the difficult gun-launch environment. CWRU and Ashlawn have signed a one-year, $500 000 research agreement to develop manufacturing and production capability in Ohio to supply these devices to the military, creating up to 100 jobs in two years and an estimated 1000 jobs in five years in the Cleveland area. University researchers will be subcontracting with the Ashlawn team to develop a ‘meso’ fuel cell – about the size of a D-cell battery – for use in smart munitions, says Jesse Wainright, a research associate professor of chemical engineering at CWRU and co-principal investigator along with Professor Chung-Chiun Liu, director of the School of Engineering’s Electronics Design Center. The Ashlawn project will work on highly reliable and easily manufactured fuel cell stacks of two different sizes: one roughly the size of a D-cell battery, the other the size and weight of an AA battery, says Wainright, adding that they have to fit in artillery and mortar shells.
contender for fueling portable electronic devices. In a normal PEM fuel cell, hydrogen travels to the anode through a polymer block bored with channels 500 µm wide. The Stanford team decided to see what would happen if they made the channels smaller and more numerous, and used a microchip etching process to bore channels just 20 µm wide. The effect was to increase the speed at which the hydrogen is delivered, and prevent the anode being flooded with fuel. This boosted the rate of proton-exchange and increased the fuel cell’s power by half as much again. Cha claims that this technique should increase runtime by as much as 50%, or the same runtime could be achieved with just 70% of the fuel. However, the report noted that Manfred Stefener, CEO of German-based Smart Fuel Cell, has concerns about waste water clogging the microchannels. ‘The smaller you make your channels, the higher the risk of water getting stuck in that channel,’ he says. ‘This can be disastrous.’ Cha acknowledges the design will have to take account of this. Contact: Suk-Won Cha, Rapid Prototyping Laboratory, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA. Tel: +1 650 736 0275, Email: [email protected], www-rpl.stanford.edu
Contact: Dr Jesse Wainright, Department of Chemical Engineering, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio, USA. Tel: +1 216 368 5382, Email: [email protected], www.cwru.edu/cse/eche/people/ faculty/wainright
Mohegan Sun adds FCV to fuel cell field trials
Or contact: The Ashlawn Group, Alexandria, Virginia, USA. Tel: +1 703 461 3600, www.ashlawngroup.com
A
Shrinking fuel channels boosts power output
R
esearchers at Stanford University in California have found a way to boost the power of miniature hydrogen fuel cells by up to 50%, according to a report in science magazine New Scientist. Mechanical engineers Suk Won Cha and Fritz Prinz have found that efficiency can be dramatically increased by shrinking the channels that deliver fuel into the cell. However, the effect only seems to work with hydrogen fuel cells, whereas liquid methanol is currently the fuel of choice for consumer electronics firms like Motorola and NEC that are developing fuel-cell powered cell phones and laptops. Methanol is favored because it releases more energy than hydrogen, volume for volume, so methanol-powered gadgets would require smaller fuel tanks. Nevertheless, using hydrogen in a fuel cell produces only water, and this, along with the efficiency-boosting trick, could make it a strong
fuel cell/battery hybrid engine from California-based Anuvu is powering a neighborhood electric vehicle developed for the Mohegan Sun resort in Connecticut. The fuel cell car is a converted GEM vehicle. An Anuvu Power-X™ 3 kWe PEM fuel cell powers the GE electric motor, with acceleration and braking provided by a hybrid battery pack. The car will be used at Mohegan Sun as a passenger and lightweight transportation vehicle, in a collaboration between the DOE, Mohegan Sun, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, W.L. Gore, the Center for Technology Commercialization (CTC), and the Foundation for Advancing Science & Technology Education (FASTec). Mohegan Sun also operates twin UTC Fuel Cells PC25 phosphoric acid fuel cell power plants providing 400 kW of electric power to the casino, and a Unigen® regenerative PEM fuel cell system from Proton Energy Systems. Contact: Anuvu Inc, Sacramento, California, USA. Tel: +1 916 921 7040, www.anuvu.com Or contact: Fuel Cell Center, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, Massachusetts, USA. Tel: +1 508 831 5250, www.wpi.edu/Academics/Depts/ChemEng/ Research/DattaGroups
May 2004
Celanese monomer for Rensselaer membranes
F
uel cell research at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in upstate New York will get a significant boost, thanks to an unusual package received recently by chemistry professor Brian Benicewicz, director of the New York State Center for Polymer Synthesis at Rensselaer. The center is working with German-based Celanese Ventures GmbH, the state of New York and nearby Plug Power to develop a more economical polymer membrane for use in PEM fuel cells. The Rensselaer research is going well – so well that Celanese recently delivered nearly 90 kg (200 lb) of a special monomer used to create polybenzimidazole (PBI), which Benicewicz is studying for fuel cell use. He says the monomer is available commercially, but not in the quality and purity that is available to Celanese. He adds: ‘If we were to buy the equivalent quantity of monomer from a standard supply house – which only sells it in very small amounts – it would cost more than $400 000.’ Celanese has also contributed $2m to the R&D program for fuel cell research at the center. Contact: Professor Brian Benicewicz, Center for Polymer Synthesis, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York, USA. Tel: +1 518 276 2534, Email: [email protected], www.rpi.edu/polymers Or contact: Celanese Ventures GmbH, Industrial Park Hoechst, D-65926 Frankfurt/Main, Germany. Tel: +49 69 305 4423, www.celaneseventures.com
CWRU, Ashlawn on fuel cells for ‘smart’ munitions
C
ase Western Reserve University in Ohio is working with Virginia-based Ashlawn Group to develop fuel cells to double the shelf life of the Department of Defense’s ‘smart’ munitions. The research also positions CWRU and Ashlawn to help create much-needed R&D and manufacturing jobs in northeastern Ohio over the next five years. As the US military continues to utilize more ‘smart’ munitions, power supply issues will 10
Fuel Cells Bulletin
become increasingly critical, since current munitions batteries only last 5–10 years. CWRU’s school of engineering has developed technology that allows very small fuel cells to be built to deliver the long-range power needed to operate the munitions. Ashlawn is designing patented fuel cells with appropriate packaging to withstand the difficult gun-launch environment. CWRU and Ashlawn have signed a one-year, $500 000 research agreement to develop manufacturing and production capability in Ohio to supply these devices to the military, creating up to 100 jobs in two years and an estimated 1000 jobs in five years in the Cleveland area. University researchers will be subcontracting with the Ashlawn team to develop a ‘meso’ fuel cell – about the size of a D-cell battery – for use in smart munitions, says Jesse Wainright, a research associate professor of chemical engineering at CWRU and co-principal investigator along with Professor Chung-Chiun Liu, director of the School of Engineering’s Electronics Design Center. The Ashlawn project will work on highly reliable and easily manufactured fuel cell stacks of two different sizes: one roughly the size of a D-cell battery, the other the size and weight of an AA battery, says Wainright, adding that they have to fit in artillery and mortar shells.
contender for fueling portable electronic devices. In a normal PEM fuel cell, hydrogen travels to the anode through a polymer block bored with channels 500 µm wide. The Stanford team decided to see what would happen if they made the channels smaller and more numerous, and used a microchip etching process to bore channels just 20 µm wide. The effect was to increase the speed at which the hydrogen is delivered, and prevent the anode being flooded with fuel. This boosted the rate of proton-exchange and increased the fuel cell’s power by half as much again. Cha claims that this technique should increase runtime by as much as 50%, or the same runtime could be achieved with just 70% of the fuel. However, the report noted that Manfred Stefener, CEO of German-based Smart Fuel Cell, has concerns about waste water clogging the microchannels. ‘The smaller you make your channels, the higher the risk of water getting stuck in that channel,’ he says. ‘This can be disastrous.’ Cha acknowledges the design will have to take account of this. Contact: Suk-Won Cha, Rapid Prototyping Laboratory, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA. Tel: +1 650 736 0275, Email: [email protected], www-rpl.stanford.edu
Contact: Dr Jesse Wainright, Department of Chemical Engineering, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio, USA. Tel: +1 216 368 5382, Email: [email protected], www.cwru.edu/cse/eche/people/ faculty/wainright
Mohegan Sun adds FCV to fuel cell field trials
Or contact: The Ashlawn Group, Alexandria, Virginia, USA. Tel: +1 703 461 3600, www.ashlawngroup.com
A
Shrinking fuel channels boosts power output
R
esearchers at Stanford University in California have found a way to boost the power of miniature hydrogen fuel cells by up to 50%, according to a report in science magazine New Scientist. Mechanical engineers Suk Won Cha and Fritz Prinz have found that efficiency can be dramatically increased by shrinking the channels that deliver fuel into the cell. However, the effect only seems to work with hydrogen fuel cells, whereas liquid methanol is currently the fuel of choice for consumer electronics firms like Motorola and NEC that are developing fuel-cell powered cell phones and laptops. Methanol is favored because it releases more energy than hydrogen, volume for volume, so methanol-powered gadgets would require smaller fuel tanks. Nevertheless, using hydrogen in a fuel cell produces only water, and this, along with the efficiency-boosting trick, could make it a strong
fuel cell/battery hybrid engine from California-based Anuvu is powering a neighborhood electric vehicle developed for the Mohegan Sun resort in Connecticut. The fuel cell car is a converted GEM vehicle. An Anuvu Power-X™ 3 kWe PEM fuel cell powers the GE electric motor, with acceleration and braking provided by a hybrid battery pack. The car will be used at Mohegan Sun as a passenger and lightweight transportation vehicle, in a collaboration between the DOE, Mohegan Sun, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, W.L. Gore, the Center for Technology Commercialization (CTC), and the Foundation for Advancing Science & Technology Education (FASTec). Mohegan Sun also operates twin UTC Fuel Cells PC25 phosphoric acid fuel cell power plants providing 400 kW of electric power to the casino, and a Unigen® regenerative PEM fuel cell system from Proton Energy Systems. Contact: Anuvu Inc, Sacramento, California, USA. Tel: +1 916 921 7040, www.anuvu.com Or contact: Fuel Cell Center, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, Massachusetts, USA. Tel: +1 508 831 5250, www.wpi.edu/Academics/Depts/ChemEng/ Research/DattaGroups
May 2004