A Breakthrough for Fuel Cells?

April 10, 2005 – Vol.10 No.3

A BREAKTHROUGH FOR FUEL CELLS?

Hydrogen fuel cells face a long list of daunting challenges they must meet if they are to be a widely-accepted replacement for the internal combustion engine. Performance, safety, longevity, reliability and other issues are slowly being worked out, but the cost of fuel cells and the trillion-dollar infrastructure needed to fuel them is frightening at this point.

For cars - where all eyes are focused - Honda is now saying 15 -20 years are needed before fuel cell cars are commercially viable.

Now, at least the cost of one component for one type of fuel cell may be drastically reduced, the membrane in direct methanol fuel cells (DMFC). The membrane keeps wet methanol fuel and air apart.

Polyfuel has announced a new version of its hydrocarbon membrane material that can be used in place of DuPont’s Nafion (tm) fluorocarbon material which is used DMFC and other fuel cells. Nafion was developed in the 1960’s, but is still a pricey component of fuel cells.

Polyfuel says that not only is its new material more durable and less expensive than Nafion but it can be substituted for Nafion in the DMFC fuel cell manufacturing process. That is, the switch to Polyfuel’s hydrocarbon membrane material should be seamless.

However (don’t get too excited yet) Polyfuel has developed the material only for the small portable DMFC market, such as a fuel cell that might power a cell phone.

The company is focusing on the portable fuel cells because it sees them as a more immediate market than automotive fuel cells. Visit Polyfuel at http://www.polyfuel.com/ .