Nestled in a largely residential neighborhood on West Jackson Street, Imax Industries Inc. is making 120 small fuel cells for the Army's Armament Research, Development and Engineering Center in Picatinny, N.J.

The Painesville project could be the largest mass production of fuel cells nationwide, said Norma Powell Byron, president of The Ashlawn Group LLC, the Alexandria, Va., firm that won a $1 million Army contract to make the cells. Most fuel cells are built by hand in small quantities, she said.

Production of a larger fuel cell for the military could create and sustain more than 500 manufacturing and assembly jobs in Northeast Ohio during the next 15 years, according to Byron and her collaborator, David Pristash.

The Pemery P100 fuel cells being made by Imax are the brainchild of Pristash, a free-lance engineer and inventor in Brecksville.

He's also president of Pemery Corp., the company created to fulfill the Army contract and to bid for Ohio Third Frontier money to develop a larger fuel cell for the military.

But this fuel cell story starts with Byron, who started her munitions development and marketing company four years ago.

She started in the ammunition business in 1977. While in college, she was in an automobile accident.

After graduation, she went to work as a receptionist for the Winchester Division of the Olin Corp. to earn money to pay her medical bills.

At the time, the Winchester Division made its namesake rifles and other firearms, as well as ammunition.

In 1980, Winchester's sporting arms business was spun off and then sold a year later so that Olin could focus on Winchester's sporting and defense ammunitions business.

By 2000, Byron was a senior marketing manager for tank ammunition and artillery at Winchester.

She has worked with the military for two decades, mostly in warhead development.

She left in 2001 to start her business, which could be the only woman-owned ammunition development firm working with the Army.

"I have great friendships" at Winchester, Byron said. "They are arguably the largest military ammunition maker in the world."

Byron and Pristash had already worked together when she told him two years ago about the problems the military was having with batteries used to detonate its howitzer artillery rounds.

The batteries often didn't work. Temperature extremes in places such as Iraq and Alaska sapped the batteries of their energy.

So they failed to meet the Army's shelf life requirement of 20 years, she told him.

Unbeknownst to Byron, Pristash - the holder of several industrial patents, including those for the technologies behind Lumitex Inc.'s BiliBlanket - went to work on the military's problem. (The BiliBlanket is a blanket of optical fibers that disperse an overabundance of bilirubin in jaundiced newborns.)

Pristash, an Army Green Beret in Vietnam from 1965 to 1969, was convinced that fuel cells were the military's answer after finding a sketch for a cell the size of a pencil eraser at the Web site of Battelle, the technology research and development organization in Columbus.

Fuel cell sized to match battery

He sketched some designs for a fuel cell that would be the power source in what the military calls a "fuze" for a howitzer artillery round. Such fuzes contain computer chips that tell the round when to detonate - on impact, in the air, or after a certain number of seconds.

Until now, batteries have powered the fuzes, which also contain a charge that detonates the shell. Pristash designed his cell to be the exact size of the battery.

A prototype of Pristash's fuel cell is the size of a small stack of silver dollars. Its stainless steel chambers will hold the hydrogen and oxygen that interact to produce electricity and water. Special polymers and a membrane combine the gases to create electricity after the rounds are fired.

The cells are designed to provide 200 seconds of electricity, Pristash said.

Pristash and Byron have filed five patent applications related to the fuel cells with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. One application, for a pump that combines the gases, is pending.

The two worked with fuel cell researchers at Case Western Reserve University last year "on a Third Frontier endeavor that didn't get a grant," Byron said.

"Necessity being the mother of invention, we started looking at membrane suppliers" rather than trying to design a membrane, she said.

They found W.L. Gore & Associates in Newark, Del. While W.L. Gore might be best known for its Gore-Tex waterproofing for fabrics, the company has created fluorocarbon polymers for industry since 1958.

"W.L. Gore had what we needed at a very reasonable price," Byron said. "Plus, they are providing us with a lot of expertise."

The two also are working with the Edison Materials Technology Center in Dayton and the Edison Welding Institute in Columbus, she said.

Working to make fuel cell economical

More than a year ago, Pristash took his sketches to longtime associate Mike Miller at Imax. Miller's industrial engineers and workers custom design and make equipment for manufacturers.

In August, Byron landed the Army contract that is paying for the fuel cell production.

Imax employees figured out how to make Pristash's fuel cell, and how to make it economically.

"It's not often you get in on the ground floor with something of this nature," Miller said about his first work with fuel cells.

Imax's 15 workers will machine and weld the stainless steel housings for the fuel cells, he said. They also will assemble the cells, using some off-the-shelf materials from W.L. Gore and another supplier.

The Army plans to test the fuel cells early next year, Byron said.

Byron and Pristash already have applied for a $750,000 Third Frontier grant from the state to develop a fuel cell that will enable artillery rounds to be "steered" to their targets.

If the grant comes through in January, these larger fuel cells could ready for the Pentagon to test by late next year, Byron said.

Success could bring revenue and jobs

"The Pentagon doesn't have a battery that will do this," she said. "We're going to really push the envelope."

If that project succeeds, Byron expects Pemery to earn $300,000 in revenues and create 14 jobs next year. By 2007, Pemery could earn $3 million with 184 workers, and $39.2 million with 433 workers in 2008.

Her projections top out in 2009 with sales of $64.7 million and 602 workers.

"This could be the hope for Ohio," said Miller, who is getting his plant ready to accommodate the Pemery workers.

Cathy Bieterman, economic development coordinator for Painesville, agrees.

"It's exciting what these guys are doing for Northeast Ohio," Bieterman said.