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March 2009 Fuel Cells Bulletin11
from Scottish Enterprise’s Proof of Concept Programme, for a two-year project to develop their idea of how the electrode can be modified to make it more efficient in dealing with carbon monoxide.
While conventional low-temperature fuel cells are on the verge of entering the market, there are several significant challenges that still need to be overcome – including the high cost of the components, and the low tolerance of the fuel cell to carbon.
Hydrogen is used as the main fuel in low-temperature fuel cell technology, but as it is mainly produced from fossil fuels, it contains carbon-containing impurities. In current mod-els of low-temperature fuel cells, the carbon forms CO that then clogs up the surface of the electrode part of the fuel cell, making it less efficient in producing energy.
The innovative electrode design from the Aberdeen team will enable the fuel cell to use either carbon-contaminated hydrogen or hydrocarbon fuels such as methanol, biofuels or natural gas without the need for upstream reforming – a costly and cumbersome process whereby hydrogen fuels are ‘cleaned’ prior to use. This makes it a more cost-effective option than currently available low-temperature fuel cell systems.
Dr Angela Kruth from the university’s chemistry department is leading the project. She says: ‘Our research will focus on the elec-trode part of the fuel cell, and develop ways in which it can better cope with the CO found in the fuel which it is converting into power.’
Contact: Dr Angela Kruth, Chemistry Department, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, Scotland, UK. Tel: +44 1224 272900, Email: [email protected], www.abdn.ac.uk/chemistry
Fraunhofer IKTS unveils SOFC running on biogas from waste
Researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Ceramic Technologies
and Systems IKTS in Germany have developed what is believed to be the first biogas plant to run purely on waste instead of edible raw materials. The plant generates 30% more biogas than its predecessors, with a solid oxide fuel cell efficiently converting the gas into electric power.
There is increasing concern that generating electricity from biogas produced by the fer-mentation of foodstuffs in biogas cogeneration
plants will cause the price of foods to escalate. To avoid this, and working in col-laboration with several small and medium-sized enterprises, research scientists at the Fraunhofer IKTS in Dresden have developed the first biogas plant that works entirely with-out edible raw materials.
‘In our pilot plant, we exclusively use agri-cultural waste such as corn stalks – that is, the corn plants without the cobs,’ explains IKTS head of department, Dr Michael Stelter. ‘This allows us to generate 30% more biogas than in conventional facilities.’
Until now, biogas plants have only been able to process a certain proportion of waste material, as this tends to be more difficult to convert into biogas than pure cereal crops or corn, for instance.
This is not the only advantage. The time for which the decomposing waste material, or silage, is stored in the plant can be reduced by 50–70%. Biomass is usually kept in the fer-menter, building up biogas, for 80 days. With the right kind of pre-treatment, this only takes about 30 days in the new plant.
‘Corn stalks contain cellulose, which cannot be directly fermented. But in our plant, the cellulose is broken down by enzymes before the silage ferments,’ says Stelter.
The researchers have also optimized the conversion of biogas into electricity. They divert the gas into a high-temperature solid oxide fuel cell with an electrical efficiency of 40–55%. By comparison, the gas engine nor-mally used for this purpose only achieves an average efficiency of 38%.
Furthermore, the SOFC operates at 850°C, which means that the ‘waste’ heat can be used directly for heating or fed into the district heating network. If the electrical and thermal efficiency are added up, the fuel cell has an overall efficiency of up to 85%. The overall efficiency of a combustion engine is usually around 38%, because its heat is very difficult to harness.
The researchers have already built a pilot plant with an electric power output of 1.5 kW, which is considered sufficient to cover the needs of a single-family home. The researchers will present the concept of the biogas plant at the Hannover Messe in April [see Events Calendar, page 20]. In the next phases of the project, the scientists and their industrial partners plan to gradually scale up the biogas plant to 2 MW.
Contact: Dr Michael Stelter, Fraunhofer Institute for Ceramic Technologies and Systems IKTS, Dresden, Germany. Tel: +49 351 2553 648, Email: [email protected], www.ikts.fraunhofer.de/business/funktionskeramik/energiesysteme/sofc/index_en.html
I N B R I E F
Japanese firms about to launch ‘commercial’ sales of residential systemsIn Japan, six companies are to start commer-cial sales of residential cogeneration fuel cell systems from 1 May, priced at about ¥3.2m (US$33 000). This is the first time that fuel cells will be marketed to consumers, according to a Nikkei report. The Japanese government will pay a subsidy of up to ¥1.4m ($14 500) per system.
Tokyo Gas, Nippon Oil Corporation, Osaka Gas, Toho Gas, Saibu Gas and Astomos Energy Corporation – a joint venture between Idemitsu Kosan Co and Mitsubishi Corporation – intend to sell a total of 4000–5000 units in the first year. All the systems will be marketed under a common brand name, ‘Ene Farm’.
Households with the systems will be able to buy city (natural) gas or liquefied petroleum gas at discount prices. Although the fuel cells are expected to cut residents’ annual utility bills by ¥50 000–60 000 ($520–620), it will still take at least 30 years to recoup the upfront cost.
Nippon Oil (www.eneos.co.jp) plans to increase its own sales to 10 000 units in fiscal 2010, through a nationwide dealership network of LPG and kerosene sales agents. Its fuel cell production joint venture with Sanyo Electric, Eneos Celltech Co, will start ‘mass-production’ in April. By fiscal 2015, the firm hopes to cut the price of the systems to ¥500 000–600 000 ($5200–6200), by ramping-up production vol-umes and pushing annual sales to 40 000 units.
Call for papers for SOFC XI in ViennaThe Eleventh International Symposium on Solid Oxide Fuel Cells (SOFC-XI) will take place 4–9 October 2009 in Vienna, Austria, in conjunc-tion with The Electrochemical Society’s 216th meeting. Abstract submission is now open, with abstracts due no later than 24 April.
This symposium, co-chaired by Dr Subhash Singhal (Pacific Northwest National Lab, USA) and Dr Harumi Yokokawa (National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science & Technology, Japan), will provide an international forum for the presentation and discussion of the latest developments on SOFCs and related topics.
Papers are being solicited on all aspects, including: materials for cell components (e.g. electrolytes, electrodes, interconnects, seals); fab-rication methods for cell components, complete cells and stacks; cell designs, electrochemical performance and modeling; stack designs and their performance; utilization of different fuels with or without reformation; stationary power generation, transportation and military applica-tions; and prototype SOFC systems, field test experience, cost and commercialization plans.
Abstracts should be submitted online: http://ecsmeet6.peerx-press.org/cgi-bin/main.plexECS meeting details: www.electrochem.org/meetings/biannual/216/216.htm
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