ACAL Energy Completes Funding Round - 3.5 million Pounds Raised in First Close -

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Cheshire, UK - May 19th 2010 - ACAL Energy, the developer of affordable and reliable Fuel Cell Engines based on platinum free FlowCathR technology, has completed a funding round worth ￡3.5 million that will provide a strong boost to the development of its core FlowCathR technology. Additional investment funds are expected in a second close later this summer.

The funding has been raised from existing investors, led by Carbon Trust Investments and supported by Solvay SA, Porton Capital and a leading Japanese automotive corporation. The funds will be used to complete development of ACAL Energy’s ground breaking FlowCathR platinum-free cathode technology and introduce first commercial offerings. An OEM evaluation kit is planned for availability later this year and a first Fuel Cell Engine product incorporating FlowCathR will be sampled to prospective customers in 2011.

ACAL Energy believes its FlowCathR technology is ready for application in small and medium sized stationary power applications, replacing diesel generators in back-up power systems, combined heat and power (CHP) installations and remote power uses. Larger-scale stationary power and transport applications are planned for the future.

“This further investment by our institutional financial and strategic investors is a strong endorsement of our technology and our Company”, says Dr SB Cha, CEO of ACAL Energy. “It recognises our recent progress and the significant market potential we see for low cost, reliable fuel cell engines.

Jonathan Bryers, Partner at CT Investment Partners said “We are delighted to be leading a further investment round into ACAL Energy following extensive technical and cost due diligence and welcome the continued support of Solvay and our other co-investors. We are excited at the opportunity we see with ACAL Energy as a UK clean energy technology company that can provide breakthrough cost and performance benefits in an internationally competitive field”.

Over the last year, ACAL Energy has achieved several important milestones, including achieving a peak power density of nearly 800mW/cm2, the development of new, potentially higher performance chemical systems, and the scale up from a 50W integrated system to a 1.5kW laboratory demonstration system. In March, a model hydrogen fuel cell system was launched to great acclaim at Japan’s FC EXPO.
[Copyright by FuelCell japan: http://www.fcpat-japan.com/]

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

About ACAL Energy Limited
ACAL Energy is a developer of a new fuel cell technology that will enable low cost and highly reliable fuel cell systems for a wide variety of applications. The company was founded in August 2004 by FlowCathR inventor Dr Andrew Creeth and is headquartered in Runcorn, UK. FlowCathR is a registered trademark of ACAL Energy Ltd.

Dual Functional Lithium-Water Battery - Generates Hydrogen & Electricity -

Large-scale and big money consuming-infrastructure is essential for the hydrogen transportation/storage for FCVs. This is a serious problem.
A significantly improved lithium-water battery has been developed recently.
This battery is one of the effective solutions to the problem. The battery generates hydrogen and electricity simultaneously.
The new lithium-water battery generates hydrogen and electricity through its discharging operation, although it is still in the laboratory level.　It is noted that if the ionic conductivity of the separator (solid electrolyte) of the battery is increased and the operating temperature is increased, the hydrogen generation capability of the battery will be increased several tens times when compared with that of the battery used for demonstration test.
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Tokuyama Constructs Trial Production Lines for FC Electrolyte Membranes

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Tokuyama has a plan to construct trial production lines, which will trially manufacture electrolyte membranes for direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC) and anion electrolyte membranes.
Place: Tokuyama Factory (Yamaguchi prefecture)
Time to start construction: Spring of the next year
Production Scale: 10,000 m square/year

Advantageous features:

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[Copyright by FuelCell japan: http://www.fcpat-japan.com/]
To learn more in English, feel free to contact at newene02"abc" fcpat-japan.com
Please replace "abc" with "@".
We don't accept free-mail addresses.
Please understand that our special circumstances cause us to do so.
FuelCell japan: http://www.fcpat-japan.com/

High-Pressure Hydrogen Gas Hose, Not Using Steel Wires

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Yokohama Rubber and Iwatani Industrial Gases have successfully co-developed a hose for the 70 MPa hydrogen gas dispenser. The hose name is “ibar HG70”. A major feature of the hose is that the steel wires are not used for reinforcing layer of the hose.
The following advantages result from the fact that the steel wires are not used:
1) The hose is free from the hydrogen embrittlement.
The hydrogen embrittlement inevitably occurs in the conventional hose using the steel wires.
2) The hose is flexible and light (in weight), and easy handling and refueling.

Yokohama Rubber and Iwatani Industrial Gases had already succeeded in co-developing a 35 Mpa hydrogen gas hose (ibar HG35) in 2006.

Those high-pressure hydrogen gas hoses were developed under contract with NEDO. Both companies have continued the research and development in the hydrogen gas sector, and presented many excellent results by using their proprietary technologies to full advantage.
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Yokohama Rubber
Iwatani Industrial Gases

The above topic is described in somewhat more detail in my site.
If interested, please visit here.

Next Generation Vehicle Deployment Plans in Japan – Till 2030 -

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METI has recently released a report describing deployment plans for the next generation vehicles, incumbent vehicles and their related industries up to 2030. The plans contain the target numbers of the next generation vehicles, which are likely to be used, and strategic plans, and action plans to execute the strategies, and load maps for some of the strategies, which contain time-arranged activities to be taken for achieving the goals.

In the action plans, the target numbers of the next generation vehicles are set to be larger than expected. The ratios of the next generation vehicles to the new vehicles sold in percentage term are 20 to 80% in 2020 and 50 to 70% in 2030. Those figures are not small.

The figures representative of the fuel cell vehicle listed are negligible. The report never ignores the FCV, however.
In a vehicle-size vs. cruising distance chart, the FCV is located in a region defined by the largest vehicle size and the longest cruising distance. The chart implies that the fuel cell vehicle will be infallibly employed for the long-cruising next generation vehicle of large size.
The report says: “The technology of the fuel cell vehicle is essential to diversify the fuels used in the transportation sector” in “Fuel Diversification” of the report.
The negligible figures will result from the conclusion produced when the fact that the FCV is under development and difficulty of building the hydrogen transportation and refueling infrastructure are taken into account.

In this connection, the unique technology has been developed by Hrein energy. The technology is capable of storing hydrogen in the form of an organic hydride, transporting the organic hydride, and removing hydrogen from the organic hydride for refueling. The organic hydride can be handled like gasoline and petroleum. The current filling station infrastructure can be directly used for refueling hydrogen vehicles.
I always think why this technology is not discussed for the building cost reduction of the hydrogen infrastructure.
For more detail, read the METI’s press release. If any question, please ask METI or feel free to contact us [NewEne01@fcpat-japan.com or Newene01@gmail.com].

My site refers mainly to the FCV descriptions excerpted from the report. If interested, please visit my site.

Infrequent Updating of My Blog & Site

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My site/blogs updating has been infrequent recently.

The following two accidents occurred and much time was and has been consumed to cope with them.
1. My computer had been on the blink since the virus attack occurred on the later part of this February. This computer trouble has been sovled, however.
2. In the computer adjustment work, the data transfer was done many times.
The result is that the home page building software acted up.

I will start again the site and blogs in near future. Please be patient.

Hybrid field motor for next generation vehicles - Rare-earth Used is halved in Amount -

Key words:
Hybrid field motor, saved rare-earths, next generation vehicles, permanent magnets, electromagnets, output density, SMC, soft magnetic composites, motor core, rare-earth-dependency free technology
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A unique hybrid field motor used for the next generation vehicles has been successfully developed by Assistant Professor Dr. Kosaka (Nagoya Institute of Technology). The new hybrid field motor is featured by: 1) use amount of permanent magnet is halved when compared with of the incumbent motor used by the current hybrid vehicle. 2) the output density is high, and 3) the motor core was made of SMC（soft magnetic composites ）which has rarely been used for the core.

Most of the motors used for the next generation vehicles are being vigorously developed in many countries. Most of the motors used for current hybrid vehicles are IPMSMs. IPMSM = interior permanent magnet synchronous motor。
The motor uses the permanent magnet as literally indicated.
The permanent magnet uses rare earths. The countries which mine and sell the rare earths are limited in number.

The necessity of developing the technology to extricate from the situation essentially needing such rare earths for motor construction is essential when taking into account the difficulty of securing rare-earths, and real commercialization and rapid increase of the number of the next generation vehicles. See “Extract from dependency of rare-metals and rare-earths”.

The hybrid field motor as one of the technologies to extract from rare-earth dependency is now being actively developed in many countries. The hybrid field motor is constructed such that the permanent magnet and the electromagnet are combined to cooperatively generate magnetic force required for motor turn. Such a construction allows significant reduction of the use amount of the permanent magnet.

Kosaka et al focused their attention on the nature of soft magnetic composite, for example, excellent formability and workability, and used it for making the motor core. Few examples of using the SMC for the core have been reported. The researches created an SMC motor structure having a 3-D magnetic circuit. The unique motor structure was designed with the aid of the computer which operates based on 3D-FEM to successfully provide an optimum motor structure.
For more detail, visit here.
If any question, please ask NEDO or NewEne01@gmail.com