meeting report

8th Grove Fuel Cell Symposium

ExCel Docklands, London, U.K.

September 24-26, 2003

• by Nigel Fitzpatrick, D.I.C., Ph.D.
• Acquire Innovations Corp.
  Vancouver, BC

The biennial Grove conference is named after William Grove who was born in Swansea, Wales, in 1811, and graduated from Oxford University in 1832. After developing a battery that would find use in the U.S. he developed the first fuel cell that consumed gas in 1839. On September 24-26, we were assembled in his name to review fuel cell progress. With the U.K. scheduled to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Suez crisis after becoming a net importer of natural gas in 2005, there was a sense of urgency. The symposium was electric in many ways!

ExCel is some physical distance from the center of London, but most traveled there by the excellent electric Docklands Light Railway. Ford made good use of the distance. A hybrid fuel cell-powered Focus, based at the ExCel conference center, crossed half of London on the evening of the 23rd, to Canada House in Trafalgar Square. The driver and navigator for the historic journey were Phil Chizek (pchizek@ford.com) and Mark Sulek (msulek@ford.com). Afterwards Chizek said “the car performed flawlessly” but that it had been a tense evening “driving on the wrong side of the street and the wrong side of the car.”

With 580 registrants and over 110 exhibitors, we were a fairly healthy group, but still small inside the vast ExCel center where two restaurants were closed for lack of customers. Relative to the recent Vancouver conference I was intrigued by the appearance of materials companies who have seen that much of the added value of a fuel cell can be theirs. These companies arrive with revenues in their normal markets. To them the refinements needed for membrane electrode assemblies (MEAs) or gas distribution plates are incremental steps; in a sense improvements to fuel cells are now on auto pilot. We can expect costs to fall. The supply chain companies are also helping in the search for the early markets.

The newly formed industry group Fuel Cells U.K. dominated the entrance to the show and I took advice from its coordinator, Celia Greaves (cgreaves@synnogy.co.uk), on supply companies to talk to.

A good example was Morgan Fuel Cell, (www.morganfuelcell.com) part of the Morgan Crucible Company. I was drawn to their stand and was walked through Morgan Fuel Cell technology and products by an enthusiastic Ian Mellor (ian.mellor@morganplc.com). Morgan was an early supplier to Ballard, and their stand featured a range of bipolar plates of varying conductivity for different PEMFC and DMFC applications. My press kit included a release about their new Bio-mimetic™ technology, which results in a more uniform distribution of air over the cathode side of a bipolar plate. Morgan claims a 16% increase in power density as well as a reduction in parasitic losses in the sub-system as the power required to drive air through the cell is significantly reduced due to lower pressure drops over the plates. To date the development work has focused largely on PEMFC-based systems; however, it also has potential benefits when applied to DMFC and SOFC platforms.

Anthony Marrett (anthony.marrett@microponents. co.uk) of Microponents Ltd. talked to me about metallic bipolar plates that were being examined for a 10kW PEMFC supported by the Department of Trade and Industry. Here, thin titanium or stainless steel plates are coated to maintain surface conductivity. Already they show that their material has been used in a 5kW stack which produced 6kW and exceeded its power density objectives. If successful, this could be remarkable as Microponents has the largest volume etching plant in Europe and produces thousands of tons of metal plates.

It is not only in the U.K. that suppliers are providing a lead. A U.S. supplier with ambition was Entegris who bill themselves as the “materials integrity management company.” I spoke with John Goodman , president of Entegris’ Fuel Cell Market (john_goodman@ entegris.com). Their sales of $249 million into the semiconductor, data-storage and life science business results in their ability to examine new niches with their skill sets without the normal fuel cell company dependence on the stock market. Goodman said they are spending their own dollars on two niches a) life science and b) fuel cells. He spoke of excellent market projections for portable and stationary applications. Their methods are proactive; for example, Entegris recently announced the purchase and operation of a 5kW Plug Power unit in their own facility. Entegris, a bipolar plate and component supplier, claims a goal of “advancing fuel cells from concept to commercialization.”

In U.S. supplier mode, I moved to the Gore stand (www.wlgore.com) where I learned of their interest in gaining added value in membrane electrode assemblies (MEAs) for PEM fuel assemblies. I was delighted to point out that they were within eyeshot of a company using Goretex™ in their product. This was MagPower Systems Inc.’s busy booth, to which I will return.

From Germany there was Umicor Ag and Co. Kg (www.eu.umicore.com) who produce fuel processing catalysts and electrocatalysts and are adding value to their product with MEAs.

I tore myself away from the exhibition and caught the end of a presentation by Chris de Koning of Shell Hydrogen (chris.dekoning@shell.com). When asked his view on the new supercharged, low emission 40% efficient 2.3 liter hydrogen engine that Ford is describing at EVS20 in November, de Koning stressed an interest at Shell Hydrogen in producing hydrogen for fuel cells.

In the afternoon session, Michael Jones of BP (jonesmid@bp.com) spoke about hydrogen infrastructure and particularly described BP’s hydrogen refueling station in Barcelona, announced at the conference to support the hydrogen fuel cell bus program. There were questions on full cycle emissions and it was clear that Jones understood the issues.

It was interesting to hear the numbers on climate change in Australia from Andrew Dicks (andrewd@ cheque.uq.edu.au). There, only 14% of climate change emissions comes from vehicles and much of the energy for stationary power comes from coal. The natural focus of their approach is on producing hydrogen from coal with sequestration. Contrast this with, for example, British Columbia where 42% of climate change emissions come from vehicles, and hydroelectricity provides 90% of the power. Clearly we have a “horses for courses” world and there is Australian interest in zero emission coal technology to produce hydrogen.

This was followed by a broad presentation from Andrew Cruden of the University of Strathclyde (a.cruden@eee.stratch.ac.uk). Cruden pointed out that the U.K. would be a net importer of natural gas by 2005. His thesis was that the place for hydrogen and fuel cells to begin was on islands, where there were also steady loads and paying customers. He spoke about the island of Islay where distances that vehicles go are necessarily short. Steady loads are provided by six well-endowed whiskey distilleries. We heard about a pilot wave energy system, hydrogen production and also a hybrid fuel cell vehicle. Cruden presented costs and showed that there would be a business case for Islay to consider hydrogen.

On the second morning I was on the Canadian stand. Here there were not only fuel cell companies but also one following financial progress. Alastair Nimmons (alastair.nimmons@ca.pwc.com) of Pricewaterhouse Coopers was on-hand to discuss their recently released 2003 Fuel Cell Industry Survey. The survey was supplied to all delegates at the Grove conference and is available at www.pwc.com/ca/fuelcellsurvey03 . It focuses on the financial information of the 16 North American publicly-traded companies engaged in the areas of fuel cell production, system integration and related fueling infrastructure. It is intriguing that 10 of the 16 companies that PwC examined are Canadian. Perhaps this is a result of the early success and magnetism of Geoffrey Ballard .

As I talked to Mark Kammerer , (mkammerer@ hydrogenics.com) of Hydrogenics beside their 20kW system we heard another Focus driving in the small space allocated for vehicle demonstrations. The squeal of its tires attracted me over. I was delighted also to find there a more retiring vehicle. John Breen , who is involved with Microcab Industries Ltd. (www.microcab.co.uk), said the Microcab is a hybrid and has a small 0.75kW fuel cell from Intelligent Energy (www.intelligent-energy.com). This PEMFC company has just raised equity to commercialize its small fuel cells. Presently the Microcab is a concept vehicle analogous to the low speed vehicles (LSVs) that are licensed for road use in the U.S. and Canada. I had seen that pedal-powered vehicles were unsteadily fighting London traffic around Trafalgar Square and realized that the Microcab product may have a role.

Rolls-Royce (www.rolls-royce.com/energy/tech/ FuelCell.pdf), who already has a major business in distributed power generation equipment, showed that in the range 5MW to 10MW the solid oxide fuel cell can be hybridized with a turbine to reduce overall costs and increase system efficiency. Like a turbine, the SOFC is being shown to be tolerant to a range of fuels. Indeed, back on the Canadian stand Fuel Cell Technologies Ltd. (www.fct.ca) had a handout from BC Research Inc. (www.bcresearch.com) describing a project with them to explore various fuels for an FCT SOFC – methanol, propane, natural gas, coal bed methane (or as the Australians were saying, coal seam methane), diesel and, of course, hydrogen.

It is always a pleasure to find a gem on poster presentations and I found CeresPower (www.cerespower.com/home.htm). I spoke there to the CEO, Peter Bance , and to engineer Athol Duckett . Forty years ago, at Imperial College, I had heard the late Brian Steele expound on conductive solid oxides. This new company is built up on Steele’s concepts and research work on gadolinia-doped ceria which allows the SOFC to operate at between 500EC and 600°C rather than the much higher temperatures normally used for yttria doped zirconia. As a result, this future SOFC can be supported directly on stainless steel. CeresPower is a testament to the value of good research.

We’ve heard about the movements of the Ballard-powered Ford Focus but also on display was the DaimlerChrysler F-series vehicle that uses the Ballard stack. The project was described to me by Christian Klein (christian.c.klein@daimlerchrysler.com). The plan is to evaluate 60 vehicles at sites in Europe, California, Singapore and Tokyo.

I then caught the end of a presentation by André Martin (andre.martin@ballard.com) who heads up the Ballard transportation programs in Europe. The presentation as it appears in the proceedings describes applications for their new 1kW Nexa™ Power Module and covers backup power, UPS and stationary power in general. Martin also described possible future uses in small electric vehicles (LSVs), forklifts and mobile floor scrubbers. Ballard is exploring common ground with other companies present (Intelligent Energy, Cellex Power, General Hydrogen, Hydrogenics, Palcan) suggesting that these may be the mobile niches where we will see the PEMFC first appear. A bold example in this space was PEM Technologies Inc. (www.pem.ca) represented by Mihai Talaba. Talaba has an eloquent technical explanation on why it may, in some situations, pay to strap a cylinder of oxygen, as well as one of hydrogen, to the motor scooter he had on display.

A challenge to these companies and an example of the elasticity of the term “fuel cell” was illustrated by Jay Mitra of RE-fuel (www.refueltec.com), who was showing a redox “reversible fuel cell system.” A vehicle can be rapidly refueled with liquid anolyte and catholyte. If a hydrogen fuel cell is 50% efficient and an electrolyzer is 80% efficient, then only 40% of the electricity may get to the vehicle wheels. With RE-fuel’s system, 80% of the electricity may get through. The energy density is only 25Wh/kg at present, but that may rise. It already means that we may have rapidly refueled low speed and indoor vehicles.

Bruce Downing (president@magpowersystems.com) was still surrounded as day three began. His company, Magpower, specializes in electrolyte additives and was showing a new form of saline magnesium-air cell. It has a higher power density and is more efficient than the systems of the 1960s. Another wet system was a 2.4kW alkaline fuel cell (AFC) that was being demonstrated by Ron Hodkinson (www.fuelcellcontrol.com). The AFC was the fuel cell of the Apollo program and was also the original system used for German submarine trials before the PEMFC now used in the U212 projects (http://www.naval-technology.com/projects/type_212/). Hodkinson points out that there has been much systematic progress, that it is significantly more efficient than a PEMFC is and less expensive. One imagines that wet systems will find niches as did the wet Leclanché cell and, indeed, Grove’s own wet battery cell.

A ‘Hot Module’ fuel cell power plant, developed by MTU Friedrichshafen, was the largest item on display. The molten carbonate fuel cells for the power plant were produced by FuelCell Energy at its Torrington, Connecticut, manufacturing facility. FuelCell Energy, Inc. (www.fuelcellenergy.com) have via the MTU development been working in the 2 to 3MW size but are moving to SOFC as their recent acquisition of Global Thermoelectric indicates. They are leading what may be a consolidation in the fuel cell business but today their unmanned display drew my attention to an adjacent small 40W PEM application.

This last was a wonderful example of the power requirement of the application being brought down to match the power output of the source. It was a fuel cell-powered traffic sign and is a result of the Tees Valley Hydrogen Project (http://www.epicc.com/Chem/). A consultant to the project, Bob Jennings , described the sign to me. It had been put together in only a few days. The fuel cell had only a 40W stack but that was more than enough for this application. The result is a soundly engineered portable traffic sign that runs on bottled hydrogen. Are 40W stacks available? Yes! You only had to go a few feet to the Heliocentris stand to find them, (www.heliocentris.com).

After two-and-a-half days I had to retreat and, of course, did so via the electric Docklands Light Railway. All was not over though! There on the DLR platform, as I was thinking about the impact on the world of William Grove, I recognized a face from the past. It was John Sykes who is a reader in materials at Oxford University, William Grove’s alma mater. Sykes (john.sykes@materials .oxford.ac.uk) is one of those working on a possible vehicle fuel storage solution that may lie in the use of magnesium hydride which can hold up to 7% hydrogen by weight. He is a member of a research network (http://www.inpg.fr/RTN-MgH2/), where salvation to the climate aspects of hydrogen as a fuel may lie.

A good conference, like the Grove meeting, results in many interactions and these carry on afterwards. We saw that the industry is now being supported from the revenues of major companies who are interested in portable and stationary applications for near-term revenue.

Transportation was not forgotten and we noted that BP’s speaker was responsive on full cycle emissions issues. With the arrival of a more easily packaged SOFC, such as that from CeresPower, vehicle integration may become easier to think about. As usual, the future will differ from our expectations. We can think about what is possible. While accepting any fuel, the SOFC actually has its highest power density with hydrogen, and it may join the PEMFC as a candidate for vehicles in due course. Storage for transportation will still need work, whatever fuel cell we use, if hydrogen is to be a fuel. In conclusion, then, I give a link, provided in the exhibition by Marc Hubert of HERA (mh@herahydrogen.com). The concept of using the waste heat from a fuel cell to remove hydrogen from a hydride is not forgotten
(http://www.herahydrogen.com/ en/tech_benefits.html).

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