Ohio Third Frontier Fuel Cell Program Awards $6.38 Million to Six Firms to Advance Fuel Cell Technology in 2010

On December 17^th, Governor Ted Strickland, Eric Fingerhut, Chancellor of the Ohio Board of Regents and Chair of the Ohio Third Frontier Commission, and Lisa Patt-McDaniel, Director of the Ohio Department of Development and commission member, recommended $6.38 million in funding through the Ohio Third Frontier Fuel Cell Program. 

“Ohio Third Frontier is building a dynamic fuel cell network capable of meeting the demands of the new energy economy,” Strickland said. “Ohio’s leadership position in the fuel cell sector is because of strong collaboration with our industry partners and a commitment to creating jobs and companies that help strengthen Ohio’s position as a global energy leader.”  

The Ohio Third Frontier Fuel Cell Program supports research and development that addresses the technical and cost barriers to fuel cell components and systems commercialization in Ohio. The awards are contingent upon State Controlling Board approval. 

"These partnerships in the emerging fuel cell industry add to the Ohio Third Frontier's proven track record of catalyzing research into innovation, and innovation into jobs," said Chancellor Eric D. Fingerhut. "The alignment of higher education with Ohio’s businesses will give companies an edge in the global marketplace." 

The Ohio Third Frontier Fuel Cell Program accelerates the development and growth of the fuel cell industry in Ohio by direct financial support to organizations seeking to: investigate near-term specific commercial objectives with respect to products, processes, or services; commercialize new products, commercialize manufacturing processes or technologies, or adapt or modify existing components or systems that can reduce the cost of fuel cell systems or address technical and commercialization barriers; or demonstrate market readiness. 

“Through our targeted investments, Ohio is creating a vibrant fuel cell industry from end-users to integrators, and material suppliers to component suppliers,” said Patt-McDaniel. “Ohio Third Frontier assists in developing the leading-edge research, development, and testing facilities that support the growth of Ohio’s robust fuel cell network.” 

Fiscal Year 2010 Ohio Third Frontier Fuel Cell Program Awards

Energy Technologies, Inc., located in the City of Mansfield (Richland County), in collaboration with Energy Conversion Devices, was awarded $1 million for its Testing Metal Hydride Fuel Cells project. The objective of this project is to develop and verify testing process and verification tools necessary to demonstrate the manufacturing repeatability of metal hydride fuel cell systems and their key subcomponents. 

Rolls-Royce Fuel Cell Systems (US) Inc., located in the City of North Canton (Stark County), in collaboration with Case Western Reserve University, was awarded $999,770 for its Reliability of Fuel Cells for Megawatt Scale SOFC Power Systems project. This project will determine the long-term reliability of the Rolls-Royce solid oxide fuel cell. A method to predict performance will be developed so that qualification of the solid oxide fuel cell can be accelerated, and thereby reduce the time for entry into commercial stationary power markets. 

NexTech Materials, Ltd., located in Lewis Center (Delaware County), in collaboration with The Ohio State University and Hocking Technical College, was awarded $1.49 million for its Improving Manufacturing Readiness of NexTech’s Solid Oxide Fuel Cell Stack Technology project. In this project, a key piece of fuel cell manufacturing equipment will be installed at Hocking College’s Energy Institute providing a facility at Hocking College that will support NexTech and other Ohio companies in a range of energy generation and storage applications. NexTech will also design and manufacture mechanically robust and efficient stacks for Solid Oxide Fuel Cells. The program is predicted to attract follow-on investment of over $50 million, and to create 156 high-paying jobs by 2016.  

Wellman Products Group, a Division of Hawk Corporation, located in the City of Solon (Cuyahoga County), in collaboration with UTC Power, a division of United Technologies Corporation, was awarded $893,252 for its Phosphoric Fuel Cell Stack Cost Reduction project. The goal of this project is to lower the material costs of the integrated separator plates (ISPs) that will be incorporated into UTC Power’s new PureCell® 400 System, power plants by employing lower cost raw materials and processing methods. 

Lockheed Martin MS2 Integrated Defense Technologies, located in the City of Akron (Summit County), in collaboration with Technology Management, Inc., was awarded $1 million for its Military Solid Oxide Fuel Cell Ruggedization project. This project will accelerate time to market for solid oxide fuel cell based generator sets (gensets) and auxiliary power units (APUs) to the U.S. Department of Defense, which is an early adopter with a pressing need for the basic value proposition.. This will result in jobs at Lockheed Martin in Akron, as well as at Technology Management, Inc. and other partners in the Ohio fuel cell supply chain within the next five years. 

UltraCell Corporation, located in the City of Vandalia (Montgomery County), in collaboration with the University of Dayton Research Institute and Mound Technical Solutions, was awarded $1 million for its Transitioning the UltraCell XX55® 55-Watt Fuel Cell from Beta Design to Commercial Product Through Manufacturing project. This project will focus on implementing efforts to transition manufacturing of the XX55® from UltraCell’s research and development facility in California to its manufacturing plant in Ohio. 

To view Ohio Third Frontier’s Fiscal Year 2009 Annual Report, as well as other program information, please visit www.OhioThirdFrontier.com.  

Ohio Third Frontier, an unprecedented and bipartisan commitment to create new technology-based products, companies, industries and jobs, has commercialized or created more-than 550 companies and attracted $3.5 billion in private investment to Ohio, a 9:1 return on investment since its inception. 

Nanomaterials Make SOFC Manufacturing Easier and Products More Durable

Risø Technical University of Denmark (Kgs. Lungby, DK)  researcher Peter Halvor Larsen has designed a simpler reversible solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) using nanomaterials.  Advantageously, the impregnation of nanoparticles allows more freedom in design and material selection of the SOFC, thus allowing manufacturers to fine tune the SOFC design according to the desired application. Furthermore, the impregnation of the electrode layers results in finely distributed catalyst particles on the surface of the pores, which in turn leads to an improved cell performance. The size range of nanoparticles makes the electrode performances even more effective. Moreover, less catalytic material is needed since all material is applied to the surface of the layer structure, where it can contribute to the electrode reaction, according to U.S. Patent  7,601,183.

The reversible solid oxide fuel cell provides the following advantages: a) The method is less complicated than methods suggested in the prior art, since no cathode/metal support barrier layer is required; b) The life time of the metallic support will be increased; during operation of SOFCs having the anode on the metallic support, the relatively high pH.sub.2O (>0.5 atm.) on the anode side may result in severe corrosion of the metal support. Having the cathode on the support side, the metal will only be exposed to air, which is less corrosive; c) If the anode and cathode are impregnated after sintering, only one sintering step is required and the method can thus be made more cost effective; d) The sintering step may be carried out without the presence of anode or cathode materials, hence negative reactions, such as coarsening, during sintering is not an issue; e) Chemical reaction between electrode materials and the other cell materials can be prevented because the operational temperature of the final cell is lower than the sintering temperature; f) Due to impregnation of the electrodes, the electrodes have high surface areas; g) The composite structure of the impregnation layer(s) ensures a good mechanical bonding between electrolyte and metal support as well as good conductivity across the interfaces.

The method for producing a reversible solid oxide fuel cell, is comprised of the following steps: (a) forming a multilayer structure by (i) forming a cathode precursor layer on a metallic support layer; (ii) forming an electrolyte layer on the cathode precursor layer; and (iii) forming an anode precursor layer on the electrolyte layer; (b) sintering the multilayer structure; (c) impregnating the cathode precursor layer and the anode precursor layer in the sintered multilayer structure of step (b) so as to form a cathode layer and an anode layer.

The metallic support is Fe22C  or an FeCrMx alloy, wherein Mx is selected from the group consisting of Ni, Ti, Ce, Mn, Mo, W, Co, La, Y, Al, or mixtures of the metals. The electrode precursor layers are formed from doped zirconia and/or doped ceria and/or a FeCrMx alloy, and in the case of a cathode precursor layer the materials are selected from the group consisting of lanthanum strontium manganate, lanthanide strontium manganate, lanthanide strontium iron cobalt oxide. The addition of the oxides furthermore  results in a decrease of the thermal extension coefficient of the redox stable anode layer, which in turn strengthens the overall mechanical stability of the layers and the resulting cell. Preferred oxides are Cr2O3, TiO2, Al2O3, and Sc2O3.

The Consortium of Haldor Topsøe A/S and Risø National Laboratory continues to focus on the development of cost effective anode-supported cells and SOFC stacks for operation at intermediate temperatures. A cell production pilot plant with a capacity of more than 1 MW per year has been in operation since 2002. A fully up-scaled production process for the anode-supported cells was established and uniform cells have been produced routinely for test and stack development.

A comprehensive report FUEL CELLS, HYDROGEN ENERGY AND RELATED NANOTECHNOLOGY – A GLOBAL INDUSTRY AND MARKET ANALYSIS  details the use of nanomaterials in fuel cell production as well as hydrogen manufacturing,  purification and storage and is available from Innovative Research and Products.