Has Fuel Cells' Hour Finally Come?
by Linnea Brush
July 30, 2007
I have not been too kind to fuel cells in previous columns, although it’s nothing personal. Fuel cells are a perfectly good technology, and they do have certain advantages over batteries. The companies making fuel cells tend to be highly dedicated – even evangelistic – about their products. The technical problems are being tackled, and prototypes have proven that fuel cells can work if only…
And that’s where the problems have come in. Infrastructure, costs, regulations, materials – fuel cells have been perpetually on the commercial brink, only to fall prey to any one of these hurdles. Recent letters to Energy Central’s newsletter say things like, “Your fraudsters in the fuel cell/fake-green industrial complex … like to claim that a fuel cell will solve the world’s energy source woes… Please do not perpetuate the myth that such toys are or ever could be a source of energy.” A more reasoned criticism states that, “Clearly missing from your latest [article] on fuel cells is any mention of where we are to get the hydrogen to power the fuel cells, which are supposedly on the horizon.” The reader goes on to list all the sources of hydrogen and the problems associated with them.
Much depends on the application (stationary versus motive versus portable, for instance). The popular press focuses on portable devices, with recent emphasis on automotive applications. Each of these markets has its own challenges, but one of the major problems could be on the brink of being overcome. And it’s significant enough that it could open the door to a REAL commercial acceptance of fuel cells – at least, for small form factors.
The “breakthrough” is on the materials level. Platinum is widely considered to be the best catalyst for proton exchange membrane fuel cells, such as hydrogen and direct methanol fuel cells (DMFC) in terms of electrical efficiency. However, platinum is about 1,400% more expensive per gram than metallic nanomaterials and other proprietary alloys being developed by a number of start-up companies. These companies believe that nanomaterials will replace platinum as the main catalyst in hydrogen fuel cells and other electrode assemblies.
QuantumSphere, for example, is tailoring catalysts for various cell types and operating temperature regimes, and designing new fuel cell systems for small, portable applications that will be efficient at room temperature with minimal catalyst loading. The company plans to “research, develop, produce and ship alternative catalyst products on a mass scale at a fraction of the cost.”
Nanomaterials could, indeed, be the “magic bullet” that could turn around the prospects for fuel cell commercialization for portable devices. As early as 2005, scientists were looking at nanomaterials as catalysts for fuel cells consisting of carbon-supported metal particles. The nanomaterial structure increases the surface-to-volume ratio of expensive noble metals and plays a vital role in reducing the overall cost of the fuel cell.
And that’s what it’s all about, ultimately – reducing the cost of fuel cells. That is a very large hurdle to overcome, and nothing so far as managed to achieve it. Find a way to swap in nickel for platinum (nickel is more than 500 times cheaper than platinum), and you potentially could help turn hydrogen fuel cells, which rely on platinum, into a cost-competitive technology.
Another problem arises, however. If nanomaterials can increase fuel cells’ marketability, they can also increase batteries’ marketability. In the latter case, the issue isn’t platinum. Using nanotechnology in the manufacture of batteries can increase the available power from a battery and decrease the time required to recharge a battery. It can also increase the shelf life of the battery and reduce the possibility of batteries catching fire.
Nanomaterials could be an equal opportunity savior. Even though they will theoretically lower the cost of fuel cells, they could also lower the cost of batteries, in terms of dollars/Amp. The benefit that this could bring to batteries is unknown, since it is possible that fuel cells would simply end up roughly equal to batteries. In that case, fuel cells would still have to prove themselves against the incumbent in some other way, such as energy density or runtime. Still, most of the nanomaterial battery developments appear to be going into vehicle applications, not portable devices.
Overall, though, I think the fuel cell market is approaching its best opportunity yet for market acceptance. It won’t happen overnight, but the fuel cell guys already know that. How many years have fuel cells been on the commercial brink? They’ve been hyped so much that my predictions are almost like the boy who cried wolf – yeah, right, another announcement that fuel cells are ready for prime time!
We would like to hear your comments on the topics discussed in this
column. Please email them to Linnea Brush at
linnea@darnell.com
We welcome the opportunity to publish opposing opinions. Please email Jeff
Shepard at jshepard@darnell.com
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