ACAL Energy Leads Field Demonstration of Platinum-Free Cathode Fuel Cell System

Cheshire, UK – 11th January 2010 -- ACAL Energy Ltd, the developer of affordable and reliable fuel cell systems, is leading a collaborative project to build the world’s first installed system using FlowCath® fuel cell technology in a practical application. The project represents an investment of £1.9 million and has been awarded funding by the Technology Strategy Board. It will see a fully operational demonstration system of a FlowCath® fuel cell unit installed at Solvay Interox’s large industrial site at Warrington, Cheshire, and will be a major step on the commercialisation road map for this innovative technology.

Joining ACAL Energy as partners on the project are: Solvay Interox Ltd, Johnson Matthey Fuel Cells, UPS Systems plc, the Centre for Process Innovation, the University of Southampton and the Manufacturing Engineering Centre at Cardiff University.

ACAL Energy and its partners will develop and operate a suitably sized, low cost FlowCath® fuel cell unit to provide continuous electrical power to a remote environmental monitoring system within the chemical manufacturing plant. The project commenced 1st December 2009, with the build and installation taking place in the second half of 2010. Ultimately, fuel cell systems utilizing FlowCath® will be a clean and economically sensible alternative to diesel and gasoline generators in stationary and transportation applications requiring 1kW to 200kW of electrical power.

ACAL Energy’s FlowCath® technology replaces the platinum catalyst on the cathode in a proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell with a low cost, durable liquid chemical. This will significantly reduce the overall platinum content, as much of the platinum in conventional PEM fuel cells is used in the cathode. ACAL Energy has developed a family of proprietary chemical compounds that deliver the same level of fuel cell power density as today’s platinum cathode systems. Further increases in power density are forecast in the future. The technology also significantly reduces the balance of plant costs by eliminating the need for hydration, pressurization, separate cooling and other expensive mechanical sub-systems commonly found in conventional PEM fuel cells.

“Field demonstration of our FlowCath® technology is a very important milestone for the company”, said Dr SB Cha, Chief Executive Officer of ACAL Energy. “This application requires the unit to run 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and will be an excellent example of the robustness and reliability of our low cost fuel cell technology. We are delighted to be part of a world-class project team and we are grateful to the UK Technology Strategy Board for their strong support.”

For further information, please contact Amanda Lyne at ACAL Energy:
Tel: +44 (0)1928 511581
E-mail : alyne@acalenergy.co.uk

Related links:
1) http://www.fcpat-japan.com/index.html
2) http://blog.goo.ne.jp/fcjggi

SRM becomes competitive with IPMSM in performance

SRM = switched reluctance motor
IPMSM = interior permanent magnet synchronous motor
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The SRM technology developed this time is innovative.

IPMSM is currently used for called electrically or motor driven vehicles (EV, HEV, FCV) and others. It is a synchronous motor in which permanent magnets are buried in the rotor. It has many advantages. Its disadvantage is that the permanent magnet used contains rareearth(s).

It is said that China almost dominantly mines and export the rare earths at present, and has a plan to reduce the amount of the rare earths exported to 1/5 of the current one.
The motor-driven vehicles and the wind power generators will form a core business in near future market. The number of the motors used for them will increase depicting a steeply ascending curve. From this, it is clear that we must be faced with a vexed problem that the demand of the motors considerably increases, while the supply of the rare earths considerably decreases.

The SRM considerably improved is a synchronous motor not using the permanent magnet (rareearths). It has advantages of simple structure, excellent heat resistance and high rigidity, but it is inferior to the IPMSM in the torque and energy utilization efficiency. The disadvantages have prevented the SRM from being applied to the motor-driven vehicles. Where the SRM is designed to produce the performance comparable with that of the IPMSM, its size is too large to mount it on the vehicle.

The performance of the new SRM reached that of the IPMSM, and its some characteristics exceeded those of the SRM.

Co-developed by:
Prof. Akira Chiba et al (Tokyo University of Science) and Pro. Satoshi Ogasawara et al (Hokkaido University).

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