Fuel Cell Nation

New PNNL Nickel-Based Catalyst

The Center for Molecular Electrocatalysis, an Energy Frontier Research Center funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), has published details about another new catalyst (see previous post New PNNL Catalyst.) The work was conducted by Smith, S. E., Yang, J. Y., DuBois, D. L. and Bullock, R. M. (2012), "Reversible Electrocatalytic Production and Oxidation of Hydrogen at Low Overpotentials by a Functional Hydrogenase Mimic," Angewandte Chemie International Edition, doi: 10.1002/anie.201108461.

The new reversible hydrogen catalyst is based on a nickel-based complex, and has been developed for more than two years. Nickel was selected due to its low cost and abundance, relative to platinum (the conventional reversible hydrogen catalyst.) But unlike solid platinum, this new catalyst is a homogeneous catalyst. In other words, unlike platinum, this catalyst dissolves in a solution. This is a problem for a conventional fuel cell, in that a soluble catalyst will get "washed out" of the fuel cell, and not be available for chemical reactions. Future PNNL work will likely be aimed towards immobilzing the catalyst, so that it can be used in conventional electrochemical conversion devices.

The new bis(diphosphine) nickel(II) complex (see picture) is has a nickel core, with phosphine ligands extending from the nickel center. The catalyst has reversible electrocatalytic activity for hydrogen production and oxidation at low overpotentials, which are characteristic for hydrogenase enzymes.  "This [catalyst] has a lower overpotential than we usually find," said Morris Bullock, PhD, Director of the Center for Molecular Electrocatalysis. "Sadly, it is also slow."

Hopefully Bullock and associates can continue improving the catalyst, including improving its speed (the kinetics), and make a catalyst that is useful for electrochemical energy conversion. Good luck!

US DOE Hydrogen Vehicle Demonstration Webinar

On Monday, February 6 from 12:00 to 1:15 p.m. Eastern Standard Time the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) are putting on a webinar titled "National Hydrogen Learning Demonstration Status." Supported by the DOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, the Learning Demonstration is coming to a close this quarter. In the webinar you will learn more about DOE and industry metrics such a fuel economy, fuel cell durability, refueling time, and station utilization as well as the status of stations and fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) deployed through the project.

In April 2004, DOE selected four teams to take part in the Hydrogen Learning Demonstration. Teams were led by Chevron (team included Hyundai-Kia Motor Co.; UTC Fuel Cells); Daimler (team included BP America; Ballard; DTE Energy; NextEnergy); Ford Motor Company (team included BP America; Ballard; NextEnergy; California Department of General Services; Sacramento Municipal Utility District; Florida Department of Environmental Protection; Progress Energy; City of Taylor, MI; City of Ann Arbor, MI) and General Motors Corp (team included Shell Hydrogen; Viewpoint Systems, Inc.; Quantum Technologies, Inc.; NextEnergy; U.S. Army; U.S. Marine Corps; State of Maryland). Additionally, Air Products and Chemical, Inc. provided station data through its DOE-funded California Hydrogen Infrastructure Project (CHIP).

The vehicle data was collected from 183 fuel cell electric vehicles spanning 154,000 hours of operation, 3.5 million miles, and more than 500,000 trips. Refueling station data was collected from 25 stations, which produced or dispensed 152,000 kg of hydrogen while fueling the vehicles approximately 33,000 times in all. The project was funded through DOE awards totaling $140 million, with an additional $188 million in cost-share provided by industry partners.

Hopefully these DOE and NREL efforts will enable the expansion of domestic fuel cell activities!

Electrolysis Suggestions for US DOE

In my recent blog post DOE Electrolysis Working Group Meeting, I described the Fall 2011 U.S. Department of Energy Fuel Cells Technology (FCT) Water Electrolysis Working Group Meeting. Industry, the National Renewable Energy Lab, and DOE participated. The aim of the Water Electrolysis Working Group, inaugurated in May 2007, is to bring industry, academia, and national laboratories together to overcome the technical barriers to commercializing electrolysis technology for the production of hydrogen for transportation and industrial use.

The Electrolysis Working Group has been tasked with helping to improve the Electrolysis sections of the current DOE Multi-Year Program Plan, which can be found at: DOE MYPP Hydrogen Production, 2011 Interim Update. The complete Interim MYPP/MYRDD can be found at: U.S. DOE Fuel Cell Technologies Program Multi-Year Research, Development and Demonstration Plan.

If you have any suggestions that you'd like me to forward to the Electrolysis Working Group, feel free to leave a comment on this post. If you'd prefer to not have your suggestion be visible as a comment, please ask, and I will only forward it privately to the DOE.

Renewable Energy Storage Webcast

There will be a Renewable Energy Storage Webcast on Friday, December 09, 2011 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM - EST on G+. It will involve a live discussion with Dr. Woodrow Clark (co-recipient of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, along with his colleagues on the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), Matt Fronk (ex-General Motors), Henry Gnacke (ex-GM, current Board Member of Hydrogenics Corp.) and Dr. Byron McCormick (ex-GM).

They will discuss:

• Current demand and outlook for energy storage
• Hydrogen storage overview: technology and current economics
• Relative merits of hydrogen vs. other storage options
• Government policy and incentive programs

The announcement says:

"Utility scale energy storage will be crucial to the future success of renewable energy generation, yet the economics of energy storage remain to be proven. Hydrogen storage, which has made significant inroads in Europe, is now being explored as a cost effective technology in North America."

See you there!

Lynntech Spins-off FuelCellsEtc

FuelCellsEtc produces Membrane Electrode Assemblies (MEA), Catalyst-Coated Membranes (CCM), Gas Diffussion Electrodes (GDE) and other fuel cell-related materials that were formerly sold by Lynntech's Commercial Fuel Cell Components Division. I've seen the following pair of headlines describing the formation of this company:

October 18, 2011: FuelCellsEtc has acquired Lynntech’s Commercial Fuel Cell Components (CFCC) Division.

And:

October 18, 2011: Lynntech Spins-off Commercial Fuel Cell Components Division as FuelCellsEtc.

I know it is a small point, but was it a spin-off or a purchase? I'm always interested in the details of how companies start. As they say, enquiring minds want to know...

One small clue is that FuelCellsEtc registered their domain on January 11, 2009. So it appears they had been planning the transaction for some time prior to the press release. That means it was almost a three-year quiet roll-out.

A second clue to this slow build up is that twtrland.com reports that @FuelCellsEtc has been active on Twitter since January 11, 2010.

And on LinkedIn, I found a notice for the 2010 Fuel Cell Seminar & Exposition October 18, 2010 - October 21, 2010, where Daniel Westerheim (Founder at FuelCellsEtc) said "Our booth number has changed to B128..."

In any event, regardless of whether it was a spin-out or a sale, I wish them a belated congratulations, and I hope they make a go of it! (And yes, I follow them on LinkedIn and Twitter.)

Daniel Westerheim (Founder at FuelCellsEtc). Our booth number has changed to B128

Wordle Word Cloud

Here's a Word Cloud I just made for Fuel Cell Nation at Wordle. I guess I talk about hydrogen...

New Toray Alternative

I got a phone call recently from Ballard Material Products Division about their new "drop-in" alternative to Toray's widely-used carbon fiber paper. The new gas diffusion layer (GDL) material comes in two different thicknesses: AvCarb® MGL190 (or MGL 190, 0.19 mm thick) and MGL370 (or MGL 370, 0.37 mm thick). It is claimed to be a drop-in replacement to Toray's GDL, except at a lower cost. An additional benefit is being U.S.-made, rather than an import, which helps provide domestic content on U.S. Government projects. (Full Disclosure: Ballard has teamed with my employer Giner Electrochemical Systems, LLC. on a U.S. DOE-funded research program to develop modeling of transport phenomena in H₂/Air PEM fuel cells.)

Ballard Material Products Division was previously owned by Textron. The Ottawa Business Journal reported in 2001 that Ballard buys Textron unit for $12.8M US. Ballard announced that the deal included 66 patents issued and pending worldwide, covering 14 innovations. Since that time Ballard has not moved the Material Products Division to British Columbia, but allowed it to remain in Lowell, MA.

A Ballard/Toray comparison (left) shows the AvCarb^® material at the same thickness, bulk density, and porosity as the Toray material. In addition, the AvCarb^® has improved electrical resistivity, incresead flexural strength, tensile strength, and flexural modulus. A sample of both the MGL190 and MGL370 are in-transit to Giner, and will be tested in the coming weeks. We will likely test it for fuel cell, electrolyzer, and possibly other electrochemical applications.

I have not been able to find any information on AvCarb^® MGL190 or MGL370 on the Web, so I guess you saw it here first!

DOE Electrolysis Working Group Meeting

I'm back from the Fall 2011 U.S. DOE Fuel Cells Technology (FCT) Water Electrolysis Working Group Meeting. Industry, the National Renewable Energy Lab, and DOE participated. The aim of the Water Electrolysis Working Group, inaugurated in May 2007, is to bring industry, academia, and national laboratories together to overcome the technical barriers to commercializing electrolysis technology for the production of hydrogen for transportation and industrial use.

In this 2-day meeting, the biggest news we were presented with were the changes in DOE's assumptions that have gone into updating Version 2.1.3 of the H2A (which stands for Hydrogen Analysis) program to get the all-new new H2A Version 3. (H2A is an Excel spreadsheet that is intended to allow the economics of various advanced hydrogen technologies to be fairly compared, through use of consistent, reasonable assumptions.) The big news on H2A is how with the switch from 5,000 psig to 10,000 psig hydrogen, compression, storage, and dispensing (CSD) costs have markedly increased. What was previously $1.82/GGE (gallon of gasoline equivalent) for 5,000 psig CSD is now $3.23/GGE for 10,000 psig! This significant increase in CSD costs is making it difficult for all hydrogen production pathways to match the energy cost of gasoline. A recommendation of the Working Group was to investigate the economic benefit of electrolytically generating hydrogen at a significant pressure, thereby potentially decreasing the corresponding CSD costs, and reducing the delivered cost of hydrogen.

I was able to find public versions of the Interim U.S. DOE Fuel Cell Technologies Program Multi-Year Research, Development and Demonstration Plan that were presented at the meeting:

• DOE MYPP Hydrogen Production, 2011 Interim Update
• DOE MYPP Hydrogen Storage, 2011 Interim Update 

As a footnote for the plan, the DOE says:

This document is currently being updated. The existing document on the Web shows the previous name of the Program within the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) ­ the Hydrogen, Fuel Cells and Infrastructure Technologies Program. The Program's name was changed to the Fuel Cell Technologies Program in 2009. Furthermore, the DOE-wide program formerly known as the DOE Hydrogen Program (which integrates hydrogen and fuel cell activities in the Offices of EERE, Science, Fossil Energy, and Nuclear Energy) has also been changed, to the DOE Hydrogen and Fuel Cells Program. 

Whew! That's a mouthful!

Local Electrochemical Society Fall 2011 Meeting

After a several year hiatus, Professor Sanjeev Mukerjee, Section Chair of the New England local section of the Electrochemical Society, recently hosted the initial Fall 2011 local section meeting:

http://www.northeastern.edu/newenglandecs/

The meeting, the first of the 2011 - 2012 ECS local chapter Seminar Series, was held in the Egan Research Center at Northeastern University. There was a reception, followed by a Lecture and Dinner. Numerous undergraduate and graduate students were on hand, from both Northeastern and MIT. Commercial companies included small businesses like Giner, Inc., branches of large corporations like Hamilton Sundstrand (a subsidiary of United Technologies), and the venture capital-funded Sun Catalytix.

The speaker was Dr. K. M. Abraham, Research Professor at the Northeastern University Center for Renewable Energy Technologies. The topic was 'Rechargeable Batteries for Long Range Electric Vehicles'

The abstract: "Today's lithium ion batteries are unable to meet the energy density and cost profiles of 200-300 mile all-electric vehicles. Low cost rechargeable batteries with specific energies exceeding 500 Wh/kg are needed to make such vehicles widely attractive to consumers. In this talk, I will present a brief update of the energy density and cost evolution of lithium ion battery technology. The prospects for new materials for ultrahigh energy density batteries will be discussed with updates on the rechargeable Li-air and Li-sulfur systems."

The talk was an interesting mix of the history of lithium batteries, as well as a review of some recent lithium battery research.

Professor Mukerjee announced that the next seminars will be held in October and November. I'm looking forward to seeing what the topics will be!

How Safe is Hydrogen?

Now that I have your attention, I can tell you that it's pretty safe. But explosions like the picture on the left can happen. The photo is from the 2007 article "Blast Waves and Fireballs Generated by Hydrogen Fuel Tank Rupture During Fire Exposure" (Robert Zalosh, Firexplo). (Full Disclosure: Bob Zalosh has consulted for me on hydrogen safety issues at Giner Electrochemical Systems, LLC.)

The above black-and-white photo is an infrared image of the 7.7 m-diameter fireball that was taken 45 ms after rupture of a compressed hydrogen tank. This rupture was caused by putting a 265 kW propane burner directly under a hydrogen tank that had been installed in place of the fuel tank under an SUV. All protection normally provided by a pressure/thermal relief device had been disabled, in order to study the resultant explosion. The hydrogen tank failed catastrophically 12 min 18 seconds after the propane burner was ignited. This was obviously an aggressive test, and would likely only occur to a hydrogen-fueled vehicle if a gasoline leak ignited underneath. (I have not searched for documentation of the explosion resulting from a comparable experiment with a gasoline-fueled car, but I imagine the fireball could be bigger than the above hydrogen-fueled fireball!)

Results more favorable to the use of hydrogen as an automotive fuel have been provided by Michael Swain at the University of Miami, in the 2001 U.S Department of Energy-funded paper Fuel Leak Simulation.

H2 car on Left, Gasoline on Right, t = 0

H2 car on Left, Gasoline on Right, t = 0 min 3 sec. Ignition of both fuels occur. Hydrogen flow rate 2100 scfm. Gasoline flow rate 680 cc/min.

Swain set fire to two cars, one fueled by gasoline and the other by hydrogen. The gasoline car had a 1/16" puncture in a fuel line. The hydrogen car had a leaking hydrogen connector.

H2 car on Left, Gasoline on Right, t = 1 min 0 sec. Hydrogen flow is subsiding.

H2 car on Left, Gasoline on Right, t = 1 min 30 sec. Hydrogen flow almost finished.

Gasoline-fueled car, t = 2 min 20 sec. Deflagration in the interior

The gasoline-filled car was completely engulfed in flames by 2 minutes 20 seconds, while the hydrogen car was essentially undamaged. Whereas the gasoline fire started as the result of a simple, small hole in the fuel line, for the hydrogen fire to occur, it would have taken the catastrophic failure of four separate safety systems, all at the same time, a highly unlikely occurrence.

What this blog post shows is that it is oftentimes difficult to compare the safety of alternative technologies. In some evaluations, sometimes "Technology A" is safer, while with other evaluations it turns out that "Technology B" is safer. Bottom line, hydrogen isn't so bad!