One Missing Part Found? | Green Energy News

October 31, 2004 – Vol.9 No.32

ONE MISSING PART - FOUND?

Technology development often reaches a point of standstill - a roadblock - because one component needed for the advancement of the technology is problematic. Everything stops, or slows dramatically until researchers find short paths around the roadblock, or just knock it down.

Hydrogen fuel cells are no exception. They have plenty of problems all of which will have to be worked out.

One of the problems has been the performance, durability, and reliability of fuel cell stacks in the most common type of fuel cell, the PEM or proton exchange membrane device. And within the stack the essence of the problem may be the membrane itself.

According to a company called Polyfuel, the perfluorinated membrane material in a PEM fuel cell membrane is easily damaged, can’t be allowed to overheat and is expensive. It may come as a shock that the membrane material alone for a 100-kilowatt fuel cell (134 horsepower) is worth about $5000. That’s more than a complete internal combustion engine in most conventional cars.

Polyfuel, of course, believes it has a replacement for the current perfluorinated membrane materials in a material it has developed made of hydrocarbons. These membranes can operate at temperatures up to 95 degrees Celsius and at a low 35 percent humidity. (Membranes in fuel cells have to kept moist, but not too wet, to operate.)

Polyfuel also says that for a given size the fuel cell using its new membrane material will produce 10-15 percent more power.

The company does not say, however, if its material can operate at sub-freezing temperatures, or when the new material will be commercially available.

The company does say that the material can be used in hydrogen fuel cells as well as small direct methanol ones. Visit Polyfuel at http://www.polyfuel.com/ .