Fuel Cell Nation

Fuel Cell Patent Infringement

At Sustainable Business Oregon I came across Fuel cell company IdaTech files patent lawsuit, the patent infringement case against its former chief technical officer (David Edlund) and his new company (E1, LLC [or Element One]). More details are available in this press release: IdaTech Files Patent Infringement Lawsuit Against Element One and David Edlund.

 I thought I'd fact check IdaTech's claim that their patent portfolio included "83 active U.S. patents." Well, a quick check at the US PTO found 87 issued patents, so "83 active" sounds OK.

But I noticed that one on the list of 87 was a Design patent: D623,103 - Vehicle fender flare (see below.)

I really don't know why a fuel cell company is patenting designs for automotive fender flares, but it's not my money!

The second thing I thought I'd check is how frequently fuel cell companies sue each other. This IdaTech lawsuit seems to be the first that I've ever noticed. I only found found two other cases on Google:

• In 2002 Lynntech Inc. lost a multimillion dollar lawsuit against Hydrogenics Corporation. Lynntech  accused Hydrogenics of infringing two United States patents relating to fuel cell testing. The court ruling establishes that Hydrogenics did not infringe either of the asserted Lynntech patents.
• In 2008 Relion, Inc. withdrew their patent infringement case against Hydra Fuel Cell Corporation in a patent case involving hot swappable fuel cell technology.

 So it looks like not only is fuel cell technology an emerging market, but so is fuel cell patent litigation!

Improved Membrane Water Transport

Robert Moore and Louis Madsen's groups at Virgina Tech claim to have done something quite interesting: increase the diffusivity of water in DuPont's Nafion^TM, the 50-year old membrane that is at the core of much current hydrogen fuel cell and electrolyzer work!

How did they do this? By stretching the Nafion^TM, using a draw ratio of up to 4:1.

Apparently, their data show that the water-conducting channels within the membrane become aligned during the stretching process. (See Figure 4 below.) In Figure 4.a, random water channels exist in the as-received membrane. In Figure 4.b, there is some alignment in the draw direction (blue arrow). Finally, in the at a 4:1 draw ratio shown in Figure 4.c, there is significant water channel alignment. Similar to nematic liquid crystals, the stretching does not change the water channel alignment or connectivity; this leads to anisotropic water transport.

Li et al Figure 4

The anisotropic nature of the water transport behavior is evident in the following Figure 2:

Li et al Figure 2

In the left figure, Figure 2.a, you can see how the diffusivity of water in the draw, or X direction (D_xx) is markedly higher than the diffusivity in the transverse directions (D_yy and D_zz). This relationship holds for all draw ratios tested, between 1:1 (as-received membrane) and 4:1.

Their data in Figure 2.a have been arithmetically averaged and plotted in Figure 2.b. This figure shows that the average water diffusivity curves for all the drawn membranes collapse to match that of the isotropic, as-received membrane.

What are the practical applications of this? Well, it may be possible to align membrane water passageways in the through-plane direction through the use of electric or magnetic field alignment methods used on liquid crystals, liquid crystal polymers and block copolymers. The resultant aligned membrane would have increased through-plane water (and proton) transport, resulting in improved PEM device (e.g. fuel cell) operation.

The complete paper is available at:

Jing Li, Jong Keun Park, Robert B. Moore & Louis A. Madsen; "Linear coupling of alignment with transport in a polymer electrolyte membrane," Nature Materials | Letter, 10(7):507-11; Jun 19, 2011.

DOE Webinar Recording: Top 5 Fuel Cell States

In my recent post DOE Webinar: Top 5 Fuel Cell States, I mention that the webinar recorded June 21, 2011 will be made available on-line.

Here is the recorded webinar. (It is in WMV format, so it's better to open it in Internet Explorer than in Firefox.)

In case you miss it during the hour-long presentation, the top 5 states are:

• California
• Connecticut
• New York
• South Carolina
• Ohio

(As an aside, just like the the May 23, 2011 webinar titled "Hydrogen Production by PEM Electrolysis—Spotlight on Giner and Proton," this webinar also had audio problems. Not sure if bad audio is an ongoing problem at gotomeeting.com, but neither webinar escaped audio problems!)

DOE Webinar: Top 5 Fuel Cell States

 
Looks like the U.S. DOE is getting into the Internet age! Coming shortly on the heels of the Webinar "Hydrogen Production by PEM Electrolysis—Spotlight on Giner and Proton", here is "DOE and Partners to Host Webinar June 21: Top Five Fuel Cell States – Why Local Policies Mean Green Growth". The Webinar is Tuesday, June 21, 2011 from 12:00 to 1:00 PM EDT.

 This webinar is with the Technology Transition Corporation and the Clean Energy States Alliance, and will discuss state policies and business development details. It is designed to supply information to companies thinking of buying a fuel cell energy system, as well as states that are interested in expanding their fuel cell incentives.

Hopefully these DOE efforts will enable and expansion of domestic fuel cell activities!

Hydrogen in Massachusetts

Everybody knows about the major hydrogen/fuel cell goings on in California. And many people know of the millions of dollars that the state of Connecticut is putting into fuel cells. However, Massachusetts has some hydrogen/fuel cell organizations as well!

The Northeast Electrochemical Energy Storage Cluster is a network of commercial, academic and government members striving to accelerate the development and implementation of hydrogen production and fuel cell technologies.

The Massachusetts Hydrogen Coalition, Inc. is a non-profit that is expanding hydrogen, fuel cell and related industries in Massachusetts by increasing resource availability, expanding visibility, and creating marketing and partnering opportunities.

The Massachusetts Clean Energy Center is the first state agency in the nation dedicated solely to facilitating the development of the clean energy industry. Besides hydrogen and fuel cells, they support solar, wind, and other green energy technologies.

Now we just need surcharges on energy utility company bills (like California's and Connecticut's) that get used to promote renewable hydrogen and fuel cells!

DOE 2011 Hydrogen and Fuel Cells Meeting (Part 2)

In last month's post Daimler/Mercedes-Benz Fuel Cell Claims - Oops!, I mention how Daimler/Mercedes-Benz has tried to take credit for the world's first fuel cell vehicle in 1994, even though General Motors demonstrated a fuel cell vehicle in 1966!

While at the 2011 US DOE Hydrogen and Vehicle Technologies Program Annual Merit Review and Peer Evaluation Meeting, I spoke with a German who was involved with the 1994 Daimler fuel cell demonstration. He confided in me that he had warned Daimler that they were not first, but Daimler made their claim anyway! He said that that was the Daimler way: to paraphrase, "Daimler was the world, and everybody else did not exist."

Oh well...

Daimler/Mercedes-Benz Fuel Cell Claims - Oops!

In my recent post Mercedes Fuel Cell Vehicle PR Tour - Oops!, I discuss how a mistake in a 2011 Daimler press release was repeated in a Bloomberg News story. The mistake concerns bragging rights for performing the world's first demonstration of a fuel cell car! You'd think they'd do a little fact-checking on their press releases!

The 2011 press release claims:

"Mercedes-Benz recognized this potential at an early stage, launching the first vehicle with fuel cell drive, the NECAR 1, as early as 1994." (Left)

Oops!

One of the first hits on my Googling "first fuel cell vehicle" for my earlier post was the hydrogencarsnow.com post 1966 GM Electrovan (left)! Verifying this was a real van was easy, as General Motors has a Fuel Cell Milestones page that confirms its existence. In fact, this earliest fuel cell car is housed at the GM Heritage Center in Sterling Heights, MI.

So I checked to see if the Daimler mistake that was made in their 2011 press release was an isolated incident, or if they made similar mistakes in earlier releases. Guess what -- I easily found ten (10!) Daimler press releases saying the same thing! (Then I stopped counting.) The earliest I found, dated Nov 8, 2007, Daimler AG to Become Majority Stakeholder in New "Automotive Fuel Cell Cooperation", says:

"A pioneer in fuel cell technology, Daimler introduced the world’s first fuel cell vehicle as early as 1994."

I also found a similar 2007 Ford press release: DAIMLER AG, FORD MOTOR COMPANY TO BECOME PRIMARY STAKEHOLDERS IN NEW AUTOMOTIVE FUEL CELL COOPERATION. The Ford version, slightly modifying the Daimler text, says:

"A pioneer in fuel cell technology, Daimler introduced the world’s first fuel cell vehicle in 1994."

So the 2011 mistake is not simply a matter of semantics, or a bad translation from the German. The truth is that for years Daimler has believed that they made the first fuel cell vehicle!

I sent an email to the Daimler PR people to see if they'd correct their most recent over-statement, given their pattern of mis-statements. After some back and forth with Matthias Brock (Research, Development and Environmental Communications, Head of Media Relations, Daimler AG), he told me they would not correct the press release. On the plus side, he at least said "You are right - we could have been a little bit more precise by saying 'Mercedes-Benz recognised this potential at an early stage, launching ITS first vehicle with fuel cell drive, the NECAR 1, as early as 1994.'", as well as  "Thanks Keith, we are going to take that into account in the future."

The only problem is that the Internet Archive, as well as Google and everyone else, now have an extensive record that claims that Daimler/Mercedes-Benz had the first fuel cell vehicle. Poor GM is not getting the credit for being 18 years ahead of Daimler!

Crystal City, Here I Come!

Time for the 2011 U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Hydrogen and Fuel Cells Program and Vehicle Technologies Program Annual Merit Review and Peer Evaluation Meeting (AMR). May 9-13, 2011 I am traveling to the Crystal City Marriott and Crystal Gateway Marriott, in Arlington, Virginia to make a poster presentation. The Poster is for the first year of a Phase II Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) grant I wrote titled "Unitized Design for Home Refueling Appliance for Hydrogen Generation to 5,000 psi."

The Poster presentation for the last year's Phase I work at Giner Electrochemical Systems, LLC is located here: Unitized Design for Home Refueling Appliance for Hydrogen Generation to 5,000 psi.

Here is some background on the project:

"U.S. automakers have invested significant resources in the research and development of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. However, to enable their widespread use, an additional major investment will be required to construct an infrastructure for hydrogen production and delivery to fueling stations. In order to facilitate this transition, the DOE has recommended that high-pressure hydrogen generation for home refueling of fuel cell vehicles be implemented as an intermediary approach.

GES has developed PEM-based electrolyzer technology for producing hydrogen at moderate to high pressure directly in the electrolyzer stack ... A low-cost process for producing high-pressure hydrogen from water by electrolysis will significantly advance the development of the hydrogen economy, providing hydrogen for fuel cell vehicles at a price competitive with that of gasoline on a per-mile basis. The ability to produce hydrogen economically, the relatively low capital cost of the electrolyzer unit, and the low maintenance cost of the unit will allow widespread distribution of hydrogen home fueling appliances deemed necessary for the introduction of fuel cell vehicles."

I just submitted a U.S. Patent application on this idea, so I can't really say anything in addition to what's in the public documents. But, enjoy!

Global Observer - Oops!

Edwards Air Force Base            (Craig Butz photo)

AeroVironment (AV) had quite an April Fool's Day event!

At 2:30 am PDT on April 1, 2010, the liquid hydrogen-fueled Global Observer unmanned air vehicle (UAV) "experienced a mishap" during extended duration flight testing. Personnel at Edwards Air Force base, where the Global Observer testing was based, report that it crashed. The crash occurred approximately 18 hours into its 9th test flight. The Global Observer was conducting "envelope expansion" flight testing, flying higher and for a longer duration than it had previously. Crash details are sparse, probably because AV has been ordered by the US government not to discuss the accident until after an investigation was completed. Crashes during developmental testing are not unusual, as Northrop Grumman suffered from the loss of a prototype RQ-4 Global Hawk during flights in 1999.

In my previous post, Hydrogen for 65,000 Feet, I discuss how the Global Observer was designed to fly for five to seven days, powered by liquid hydrogen, at altitudes up to 65,000 feet. Design criteria included 2.8 kilowatts (kW) of power for a 380-lb. payload, and a liquid hydrogen-fueled internal combustion engine producing about 60 kW of electricity.

AV received a US$140 million contract in September 2007 for a Joint Capability Technology Demonstration (JCTD) of the Global Observer (GO-1). Three GO-1s were planned on being built under the JCTD, jointly overseen by six U.S. government agencies. The second air vehicle is nearing completion at the AV factory. The third unit was supposed to be a backup, but it has not been discussed since the order was announced in June 2009. AV has recently stated that most of the funding for the program has been spent.

The worst part for AV is that this high-profile crash comes after another high-profile crash 8 years ago. On June 26, 2003, the NASA-funded Helios prototype UAV broke up and fell into the Pacific Ocean about 30 minutes after take-off from Kauai, in the Hawaiian islands. Helios had been quite a successful UAV, because on August 14, 2001, Helios set a world record for a winged aircraft at an altitude of 96,863 feet (29,523.8 m). Unlike Global Observer, Helios had solar cells, an electrolyzer supplied by Giner Electrochemical Systems designed to produce hydrogen and oxygen for storage, and a fuel cell fueled by the hydrogen and oxygen to produce power overnight.

According to Wikipedia,

"The (Helios) investigation report identified a two-part root cause of the accident:

1. Lack of adequate analysis methods led to an inaccurate risk assessment of the effects of configuration changes leading to an inappropriate decision to fly an aircraft configuration highly sensitive to disturbances.

2. Configuration changes to the aircraft, driven by programmatic and technological constraints, altered the aircraft from a spanloader to a highly point-loaded mass distribution on the same structure significantly reducing design robustness and margins of safety."

Hopefully AV can quickly get beyond this latest tragedy to continue their groundbreaking work. And hopefully the conclusions of the Global Observer investigation are not as painful as those of the Helios investigation. AV better hurry, though, as Boeing plans to fly its company-funded Phantom Eye hydrogen-fueled high-altitude, long endurance (HALE) UAV demonstrator at Edwards later this year, and Aurora Flight Sciences hopes to fly their Orion twin diesel engine-powered, five-day-endurance medium-altitude UAV this year under an Air Force-sponsored JCTD.

 (Boeing photo)         (S. Schaeffer-Hopkins photo)

Fuel Cells for UAVs, Part 1

Spider Lion       (Courtesy NRL)        Ion Tiger 

Since 2003 the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory has teamed with Protonex Technology Corporation to produce a series of hydrogen-air fuel cell-powered unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV).

In November of 2005, the NRL conducted its first UAV flight with the Spider-Lion, using commercial parts (such as a paintball gun compressed air tank to hold the compressed hydrogen, and aluminum foil and tubing for a radiator). It flew for 3 hours and 19 minutes, without a payload.

  In 2009 the NRL flew the Ion Tiger, a much larger UAV capable of carrying a 5 pound payload. An October flight stayed aloft for a record 23 hours and 17 minutes, while a November flight set a new record of 26 hours and one minute. The Ion Tiger included a number of improvements, such as a more efficient fuel cell, and custom-fabricated compressed hydrogen tanks.

I thought a comparison of the two UAV fuel cell power plants would show how much a technology can change in four years. The following table summarized what I have found:

In 2005 a UAV could fly without a payload for 3 hours; by 2009 a UAV could carry a 5 pound payload for a full day. Furthermore, the 2009 UAV could carry the 2005 UAV as its payload!

Relative to the 2005 UAV, a 2009 UAV weighed six times as much, but also had six times the power (resulting in the same power density), and carried 12.7 times the energy (for a significantly longer flight duration). By using specialized components, rather using generic components (i.e. a paintball gun compressed air tank to hold the compressed hydrogen, and aluminum foil and tubing for a radiator), the 2009 UAV's fuel cell system level power density was twice that of the 2005 craft.

All in all, this shows the rapid progress possible with a motivated sponsor (NRL) and a promising technology (hydrogen-air fuel cells). I wonder what the NRL will prove in 2013, if they keep on this trajectory!