Building Longer-Lived Fuel-Cell Stacks

An anonymous reader writes "Ballard Power Systems tells Wired that they have built a hydrogen fuel-cell stack that runs uninterrupted for 20,000 hours straight. But DuPont's Nafion membranes are very delicate, which makes the roadworthiness of fuel cells an issue."

Comments

UPS

[Anonymous Coward]

this would make a cool UPS then

It's still progress

[grub]

But DuPont's Nafion membranes are very delicate, which makes the roadworthiness of fuel cells an issue."

Delicate now. Future membranes may not be so fragile. It's still a step forward.

Re:It's still progress

[NYTrojan]

Not all fuel cells are nearly so fragile. I work for a company that produces military equipment. We researched fuel cell applications and in a demonstration actually put a bullet through one. They can be made to survive.

Fuel Cells

[YomikoReadman]

I've been following the fuel cell development for a few years now, and have been shocked at the lifetime expectancy increases. However, I think that it's about time to stop working on making them go longer and worry about making them more stable and less expensive. Once they can get the price down to where they are as cost efficient as gasoline, and relatively safe and reliable, then they should start increasing the lifetime.

Re:Fuel Cells

[Anonymous Coward]

They're not dumping all their research into just making them last longer, they're working on everything about them, including stability and cost to produce.

It's a new field and this is just one announcement about a big jump from their last models. They are also more stable and manufacturing costs are coming down. Also, advertising something is more stable makes people think the last model was unstable and there's enough FUD about hydrogen that they don't want to suggest anything like that.

Re:Fuel Cells

[windex]

You would think, being as it's VERY simple to split oxygen and hydrogen, that someone would eventually build a giant solar array in the middle of the ocean, being as salt makes a good catalyst... but no. :)

Re:Fuel Cells

[UniverseIsADoughnut]

"GM released the Impact as the Saturn EV1, even though it was expensive, somewhat short on mileage, and somewhat experimental, and they still found a market for the lease program. Their success with simply getting them on the road helped to prototype technologies for newer cars, and it at least gave them some experience with how the technology behaved once implemented on a relatively decent scale."

First the EV1 was sold as the GM EV1, the first and only car to carry the GM name. The program was a huge failure. GM spent 1 billion dollars on it. They built 1 thousand cars. So think about how much each car cost them, then that they were leasing them for almost normal lease prices. GM lost a crap load of money on it just to come to the same conclusion everyone knew before hand, EV's are a waste.There was never a market for them, the range was only acceptable to a few people.

" Simply making them available would be a good start."

No it would not. When fuel cells come to market if they do which i don't see for the forseeable future (IE a decade) they have to come out and work perfect and be there for everyone. If 1 company comes out before everyone else with them and their cars have proplems or are simply not something people want the whole market is shot. It would be like GM's half ass attempts at bring Diesel cars out in the 70's the cars sucked so bad the market in the US was destroyed from there after. When hybrids started coming everyone new they had to suceed. Thats why their developement took so long. The prius is said to be way over built cause they couldn't chance it breaking. Ford is spending years upon years tuning the Hybrid escape to ensure no problems. Imaging if the Honda insight made it to market first, the image of hybrids would have been ruined. People would think a small impractical ugly car every time someone said hybrid and wouldn't like the idea of hybrids. Worse yet imagine if the insight had problems and needed repair all the time, the market would be destroyed. Thats why automakers when it comes to a big switch make such switches on cars people want, and make sure as heck it aint going to fail. You don't ever see to much new tech introduced on econbox/cheap cars do you. If they did people wouldn't want it becuase it would be seen as crap.

The fuel cell industry can't handle someone trying to just get fuel celled cars to market and hoping to work the bugs out later. If someone does that they will probably fail. As is the fuel cell car industry is seeing their odds for happening twindle, hybrids using IC engines, and or Hyrdrogen powered IC engine cars are looking better and better as the realities of the fuel cell cars come more aparent

You're forgetting the major problem

[Gay Nigger]

Forget about fuel cell membranes being fragile, the real problem is in getting the fuel to the cell in the first place.

First of all, there's the huge problem of how you're supposed to store hydrogen onboard your car. I've seen several proposals, but they all have their drawbacks (fuel too heavy, tank required too heavy, too explosive, too dangerous in a crash, etc.). It seems that nobody's come up with a reasonable solution to this problem.

Secondly, there's the problem of fuel distribution. Unless and until there's some way to hook up a fair number of gas stations with a hydrogen fuel supply that these cars can use, nobody's going to buy into fuel cells being used for transportation. Of course, along with this problem is the one of how such an infrastructure upgrade will be financed in the first place without a demonstration of existing demand. The only way I can really see this chicken-and-egg problem being overcome is massive government investment in infrastructure upgrades. Sorry, libertarians, but the free market is going to fail here.

So, basically, we have a long way to go (if we ever even get there at all) before we see cars powered by fuel cells in general use. Until then, they're mostly a curiosity (and a very expensive one, at that.)

Re:You're forgetting the major problem

[2nd Post!]

It's not so difficult; one of the proposals I've seen is to use GAS as the hydrogen source, since gasoline is a hydrogen rich hydrocarbon chain.

Of course ultimately you want a hybrid fuel cell electric vehicle; battery and electric motor for regenerative braking and to maintain optimal efficiency during operation, fuel cell for optimum extraction of energy from fuel source and to provide energy to the motor, and gasoline for it's high storage density; yes, yes, gas *is* a limited resource, but until technology finds a better solution, this combination will help maximize our existing stock; we could possibly use biodesiel, corn-ethanol, and other similar fuels in this system.

Re:You're forgetting the major problem

[TopShelf]

What about using methane as the hydrogen source? There are already roughly 7,000 drive-through methane generation stations in the US...

only 20,000 hours?

[Horny Smurf]

That's 2.25+ years. I'm wondering if they've been tested for the last 2 years, or if it just looks good on paper.

No biggie...

[FroMan]

Big deal, so a couple blow up when rear ended, who needs road worthy. We haven't had a Ford Pinto or Firestone tire problem in a couple years. We need more excitement on the roads.

Granted cell phone users still add a bit of excitement to driving.

Getting hydrogen to the stations is a problem?

[Anonymous Coward]

The article mentions how getting hydrogen to the fueling stations is a problem. How is that? The fueling station probably has both tap water and electricity coming in, so if the hydrogen is going to be made using electricity in the first place, why don't they just do it at the station instead of hauling it across the country?

Solution probably not nafion

[siskbc]

Delicate now. Future membranes may not be so fragile. It's still a step forward.

Fair point, but for what it's worth Nafion isn't an immature technology - it's been the proton-transfer membrane of choice in the fuel cell crowd for some time now. Point is, I wouldn't expect any sort of massive improvement from it alone.

Only possibility I can think of directly is some sort of support matrix, which would lessen the amount of membrane which is Nafion, tanking the current of hte cell.

As it happens, the transfer-membrane is generally the weak point of the cell, both from a chemistry as well as mechanical standpoint, so I don't find this incredibly surprising. ;)

Re:Why?

[duffbeer703]

The Hindenburg disaster was caused by the highly combustible material coating the outer skin of the airship. The material used to seal the cellulose shell was very similar to what is used today as solid rocket fuel.

While hydrogen is inflammable, gasoline, the current fuel of choice is hardly fireproof. There is a good reason why military vehicles are diesel.

But GWB said...

[Anubis333]

But George said we'd all be flying Hydrogen Fueled cars in no time! *Shucks* I guess we'll have to fall back on the President's other equally realistic transportation policy; Unicorns.

More on fuel cells

[andy1307]

From this week's issue of BusinessWeek(subscription section)

A Cooler, Cheaper Way to Power Fuel Cells

Big commercial fuel cells are already turning hydrogen into electricity in factories, office buildings, and power plants around the country. Most are fed by so-called reformers -- mini chemical plants that convert natural gas into hydrogen at around 2,000F. Such infernal temperatures are O.K. in industrial settings, but it's hard to imagine those reformers in homes.

Scientists at Georgia Institute of Technology have found a way to cool things down to as low as 600F -- "closer to the heat in your kitchen oven," says Zhong Lin Wang, a professor of materials science. It's done with certain oxides of rare-earth elements such as cerium. When doped with iron, the oxides efficiently transform methane into hydrogen, Wang's team reports in the March issue of Advanced Materials.

What's more, the Georgia Tech materials are self-renewing and work continuously. The oxides are recharged by exposing them to water vapor, from which they absorb the oxygen that was used in the conversion process. And despite their name, Wang's rare-earth oxides are plentiful, so they should be cheaper than the catalysts used in high-temperature units. In time, he hopes to slash the heat needed to levels so low that solar power could drive the reformer. Meanwhile, fuel-cell makers are lining up to fund the project.
By Adam Aston

Re:Why?

[duffbeer703]

Diesel requires high compression to combust. There has been instances where a spill of fuel oil or diesel has extinguished a household fire.

Gas-turbine powered vehicles (like the M1 Abrams) can burn gasoline, kerosene or diesel. All other combat vehicles use diesel. During WW2, when there were shortages of just about everything, gasoline engines were placed in halftracks and tanks, with disaterous results.

With regard to the Hindenburg, it is generally accepted that the initial fire was not a hydrogen burn, since spectators reported extemely bright and colorful flame. (Hydrogen flame is not very colorful) The outer shell of the Hindenburg caught fire, probally due to static discharge, which eventually led to a hydrogen leak and bigger fire.

You'll find that many fire disasters are causes by various sealants. That big circus fire in the 50's killed hundreds of people because a mixture of kerosene and paraffin wax was used to waterproof the tent.