Fuel Cell Center to Lure Corporate Deals

By JOHN O’DELL

Feb. 20, 1998 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

IRVINE —

The groundbreaking National Fuel Cell Research Center at UC Irvine will start life with a $1-million operating budget and plans to land about $4 million in research contracts for industry clients interested in the technology.

And those numbers could double in a year or so as interest in commercial development of fuel cells swells, Director Scott Samuelsen said Thursday at the center’s unveiling in UCI’s engineering school.

Samuelsen said the center’s operation will represent a major shift in university-based research. Instead of expecting industry sponsors to fund research projects that are conducted by UCI researchers, he said, the center will provide a place where academic, government and industry researchers will work side-by-side.

“The goal is to be a bridge between the development of technology and the development of applications for that technology in the marketplace,” Samuelsen said.

To that end, he said, the center will devote a portion of its energies to developing fuel cells that can be used to help power automobiles, buses and other ground transportation. While there are no auto makers among the center’s founding members, Samuelsen confirmed Thursday that he is in talks with Toyota Motor Corp. and General Motors Corp. and hopes to enlist them as center sponsors. Most of the world’s big car companies, including GM, Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler Corp., also are deeply involved in their own fuel cell research projects.

An automotive component should give some glitter to what Samuelsen called an otherwise “boring” technology that has no moving parts, doesn’t make any noise and “doesn’t have any lights that light up” to excite people. But the fuel cell center will devote 80% of its research efforts to electrical generation, Samuelson and other seminar participants said.

Fuel cells, which convert hydrogen directly to electrical and heat energy, are considered by many specialists as the best possible source of clean, cost-efficient energy for the future. Fuel cells convert about 60% of the fuel they consume into electrical energy, versus an average efficiency of 35% for other types of generators.

But because there is little commercial market for them yet, there is no mass production of components for fuel cells and they remain far too expensive to compete with conventional power sources like gas turbine generators or internal combustion engines.

The UCI center is the first major fuel cell research operation affiliated with a university. It is an offshoot of a more modest center established by Southern California Edison Co., Westinghouse and the federal Energy Department in 1992 in Riverside County. Edison has turned its work over to UCI as it bows out of major public interest research--a result of the deregulation of the state’s power industry.

With the center, whose scope has been expanded, the university also received a 25-kilowatt fuel cell-powered generating plant that Edison values at $250,000. The power plant, which has been installed in the new facility at UCI, will be used for research and teaching purposes, Samuelsen said.

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Powering the Future?

Fuel cells convert the chemical energy of a fuel directly to usable energy--such as electricity or heat--without combustion. They are virtually pollution free and could help replace the internal combustion engine.

Proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cells are regarded as the best for automotive uses. They are compact, operate at low temperatures and use no toxic liquids as do other fuel cells. A single cell consists of two electrodes, an anode and a cathode, separated by a solid polymer membrane. The electrodes are coated with a platinum catalyst on one side.

1. As hydrogen is fed to the anode, the catalyst promotes its separation into free electrons and protons.

2. The electrons cannot pass through the membrane ad are conducted as electrical current through an external circuit to an electric motor. The motor turns the wheels as the electrons are routed to the cathode.

3. The protons, meanwhile, migrate through the plastic membrane to the cathode.

4. There the catalyst prompts a reaction with oxygen from the air and the electrons to form water vapor.

Other Types

Fuel cells differ according to the material used to create an electrochemical reaction (electrolyte) and how much waste heat is produced (operating temperature). Power-generating cells include:

Phosphoric acid

Electrolyte: Phosphoric acid

Operating temperature: 200 degrees Celsius

Applications: Electrical energy and hot water for large buildings such as hotels

Solid oxide

Electrolyte: Zirconia

Operating temperature: 1,000 degrees Celsius

Applications: Cogeneration facilities; power source for large building complexes such as hospitals and university campuses

Molten carbonate

Electrolyte: Molten alkali carbonate mixture

Operating temperature: 700 degrees Celsius

Applications: Similar to those for solid oxide type; is more tolerant of fuel-source impurities