Archives: Fuel Cells

Fuel Cells 2000 has just put out a very positive 79 page report describing the growth of hydrogen fuel cells in the United States over the past year. According to Fuel Cells 2000, “With more than 74 MW of fuel cells for stationary power and 1,700 fuel cell-powered forklifts installed or purchased in just over • Read More »

Researchers at Harvard University have come up with a solid-oxide fuel cell (SOFC) that keeps going even after the hydrogen has run out. The thin-film SOFC uses Vanadium oxide on its anode to generate energy like a fuel cell then store energy like a battery. According to the Harvard Gazette, “The new SOFC uses a • Read More »

ITM Power has received a grant for $450,000 USD to develop a supply chain of low cost parts for hydrogen PEM fuel cells. ITM Power is part of a large consortium of partners, which in total will receive around $1.7 million USD for their efforts in bringing down the costs of fuel cells. According to • Read More »

The world’s first fuel cell stack for automobiles produced via automation came into being on June 7, 2012. Mark this date in your history books as it will be referred to many times in the future. Mercedes-Benz Canada, located in Burnaby, British Columbia, recently celebrated the opening of their 3,300 square meter automated automotive facility • Read More »

There is another industry passing up fuel cell cars in regard to commercialization right now. And that industry is large stationary fuel cells to supply main or backup power. Ballard and Bloom Energy are two of the big players selling large stationary fuel cells to corporations such as Toyota and eBay. According to Altenergymag, “Site • Read More »

Ballard has been in the fuel cell game for a couple of decades now. The Canadian company ran at a loss for many years banking on the fact that its fuel cells for cars would one day pay off and put it into a black bottom line. I remember asking the Ballard reps at one • Read More »

Researchers at Stanford University in Northern California have developed what they are calling “unzipped carbon nanotubes” to replace catalytic platinum in fuel cells. Today’s price of platinum is between $1400 and $1500 per ounce. Carbon nanotubes and graphene, on the other hand, are relatively cheap to produce. This low price could lead to wide spread • Read More »

The New York Intellectual Property Law Association (NYIPLA) has named a senior chemist, Radoslav Adzic, who works for the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) with its prestigious 2012 Inventor of the Year award. It’s Adzic’s work with nanocatalysts that use small, durable amounts of platinum to create reactions in hydrogen PEM • Read More »

University of Connecticut (UConn) professor Radenka Maric has developed a low cost method of creating fuel cell membranes. The new technique will reduce the high cost of platinum in fuel cells by 10 times. According to UConn, “…one of the primary drawbacks to the widespread use of the cells is that they are expensive to • Read More »

In September 2007, I had talked about how carmaker Daihatsu was developing a platinum-free fuel cell that uses liquid or solid hydrazine hydrate for fuel instead of gaseous hydrogen. Now, 5 years later they are still showing off their FC ShoCase concept vehicle that runs on hydrazine hydrate (N2H4H2O). I hope they are a little • Read More »