Publication date: 13-January-2004

According to the companies, the system achieves a power generation efficiency of around 50%, almost double the 25-35% of most current systems. They plan to develop a 10kw-plus fuel cell power generation system by the spring of 2007 and to sell it to stores and small factories, the business daily reported.

The new fuel cell system is based on a solid oxide fuel cell, which generates power by extracting hydrogen from methane, with the hydrogen then reacting with oxygen to produce electricity.

Kansai Electric and Mitsubishi Materials have raised the efficiency of their SOFC system by employing electrodes with smaller molecular structures.

In addition to a higher efficiency, the new system offers an operating temperature of about 800 degrees Celsius rather than the 1,000 C or so required by most other systems. The lower operating temperature makes the system cheaper to build because it can use stainless steel and other widely available materials in its parts, the report said