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Airgas, Inc. ARG and Nuvera Fuel Cells, Inc., today jointly announced a five-year marketing, sales, and service agreement to provide PowerTap^TM hydrogen generators and stations to the North American material handling market. Under the agreement, Nuvera will manufacture the PowerTap systems and Airgas will provide distribution, installation, monitoring and maintenance of the equipment, as well as backup hydrogen, at customer sites.

PowerTap is a hydrogen generator and hydrogen station, part of the Nuvera Total Power Solution that includes PowerEdge™, a fuel cell hybrid system that replaces standard lead acid batteries in material handling equipment such as forklift trucks. The PowerTap generator uses steam reformation technology to produce hydrogen from natural gas.

“We’re very happy to be partnering with Nuvera to deliver all the benefits of on-site hydrogen generation to customers with warehouses and forklifts,” said Peter McCausland, Airgas chairman and chief executive officer. “For customers who want to increase productivity while reducing their environmental impact, this sustainable technology lowers CO₂ emissions while eliminating more costly, resource-intense battery installations and disposal. By combining Nuvera’s technology and manufacturing expertise with Airgas’ nationwide distribution capability, we’re able to provide the lowest total cost energy solution for these customers.”

According to McCausland, Airgas will provide lease and maintenance programs for PowerTap systems so customers can avoid the upfront capital cost associated with purchasing the equipment.

“We are extremely pleased to be working with Airgas, whose strong national presence, sharp customer focus, and operational capabilities will provide a competitive offering to prospective Total Power Solution customers,” said Roberto Cordaro, Nuvera Fuel Cells chief executive officer. “With this new distribution and service channel for our PowerTap systems, and source for backup hydrogen, the material handling market has a reliable, cost-effective and reputable source of hydrogen that will further the commercialization of Nuvera’s products.”

About Airgas, Inc.

Based in Radnor, Pennsylvania, Airgas, Inc. ARG, through its subsidiaries, is the largest U.S. distributor of industrial, medical, and specialty gases, and hardgoods, such as welding equipment and supplies. Airgas is also one of the largest U.S. distributors of safety products, the largest U.S. producer of nitrous oxide and dry ice, the largest liquid carbon dioxide producer in the Southeast, and a leading distributor of process chemicals, refrigerants, and ammonia products. More than 14,000 employees work in over 1,100 locations, including branches, retail stores, gas fill plants, specialty gas labs, production facilities, and distribution centers. Airgas also distributes its products and services through eBusiness, catalog, and telesales channels. Its national scale and strong local presence offer a competitive edge to its diversified customer base. For more information, please visit www.airgas.com.

About Nuvera Fuel Cells, Inc.

Nuvera Fuel Cells is a global leader in the development of fuel cell systems and fuel processors for both end users and OEMs. With offices located in the U.S. and Europe, Nuvera provides clean, safe, and efficient products for industrial vehicles and equipment in addition to furthering the development of power systems for automotive and transportation applications. www.nuvera.com

5th generation on the right. Photo: ABG

GM’s Fifth Generation Hydrogen Fuel Cell
On the left side of the photo above is the fuel cell stack from the hydrogen-powered GM Equinox (93kW of output) and on the right side you can see the new fifth generation GM fuel cell stack (93kW of output also). Even without looking at the technical specifications, it is pretty obvious that the next gen GM fuel cell is an improvement on the previous version, but size and weight is not all there is to it…

5th generation fuel cell stack on the left. Photo: ABG

Incremental Improvements (but Significant)
The biggest improvement is no doubt the lower cost. GM engineers have reduced the amount of expensive platinum used by more than 50%, from about 80 grams in the 4th generation stack to about 30 grams in the 5th. GM’s roadmap also aims for a further platinum reduction for the 6th generation, with the goal of bringing the total used under 10 grams per fuel cell stack.

Economies of scale will no doubt help drive the cost per fuel cell stack down too; While the 4th generation had a production volume of about 500 units per year, the 5th generation should reach about 10,000 units per year in 2015.

Real-world testing has also allowed GM to improve the durability of its fuel cells. From about 30,000 miles when they were first introduced to around 80,000 miles after some updates based on this real-world feedback. But that’s for the 4th generation. GM expects that the 5th generation will reach about 120,000 miles at introduction in 2015.

Hydrogen Progress
It’s certainly good to see that hydrogen vehicles are still getting significantly better with each new version (f.ex. Check out the Toyota FCHV-adv with its 431 miles range) and that engineers haven’t yet hit a wall, this doesn’t exactly solve the bigger problem of how to get a hydrogen infrastructure in place (an expensive and technically complex proposition).

Via Autobloggreen

Sunlight can readily liberate hydrogen from water as a result of a novel solid catalyst that mediates that reaction with unprecedented efficiency, according to researchers in China who developed the catalyst. The study advances the decades-old search for an inexpensive way to produce hydrogen, a versatile fuel, from water, an abundantly available resource.

A key challenge to tapping into solar energy on a broad scale is developing an effective way to store that energy. One strategy calls for using sunlight to produce fuels such as hydrogen, which in many ways is considered an ideal energy carrier. Using sunlight to evolve hydrogen from water photolytically is one direct route to converting solar energy into fuels. But most photocatalysts suffer from significant shortcomings.

For example, many photocatalysts facilitate water splitting only under ultraviolet light, which constitutes just a few percent of the energy in the broad solar spectrum. Other catalysts have been designed to exploit the visible wavelengths of sunlight. But they do so only with limited effectiveness. A standard measure of that effectiveness is known as quantum efficiency, which can be expressed as the ratio of the number of product molecules to incident photons.

Among synthetic catalysts activated by light in the visible range, the highest quantum efficiency for hydrogen production from water reported until now is about 60%. In contrast, the quantum efficiency of natural catalytic systems that drive photosynthesis can reach 95%.

Now, researchers at Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, in China, have developed a three-component semiconductor-based catalyst that can produce hydrogen from water when irradiated with light in the visible-wavelength region (420 nm) with a quantum efficiency as high as 93% (J. Catal., DOI: 10.1016/j.jcat.2009.06.024).

The catalyst, prepared from cadmium sulfide doped with low concentrations of palladium sulfide and platinum, does not convert water into hydrogen and oxygen. It evolves hydrogen alone and does so only from water solutions containing sulfur-based “sacrificial” reagents that consume oxygen, according to Can Li, who led the study and directs the institute’s catalysis laboratory.

Fengtao Fan/Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics

At Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics, in China, Donge Wang gears up to measure light-stimulated catalytic hydrogen production from water.

While searching for the composition that yields the most active photocatalyst, Li, Hongjian Yan, Jinhui Yang, and coworkers observed that pure CdS evolves hydrogen from water very slowly. The team found that doping CdS with platinum or palladium greatly increases the hydrogen yield. But doping CdS with both metals offers little additional benefit, they found. So the team took another approach: They doped CdS with PdS, which boosted CdS’s activity by more than a factor of 260. Then they co-doped CdS with PdS and platinum and found the three-component material to be 380 times more active than pure CdS.

The group proposes that PdS serves as an oxidation cocatalyst (co-dopant), and platinum’s role is to facilitate reduction. Li notes that further work is already under way to firmly establish the roles of each of the components.

“The reported quantum efficiency of hydrogen evolution is remarkably high,” says Kazunari Domen, a photocatalysis expert at the University of Tokyo. He adds that the requirement for sacrificial sulfur compounds might be exploited, for example, to produce hydrogen from sulfur-laden petroleum products. But in Domen’s view, the most significant aspect of the work is the novel combination of cocatalysts, which will likely motivate other researchers to explore that strategy in the search for better performing catalysts.

New 100% hydrogen-fuelled generation plant at the Fusina power plant successfully up and running -Hydrogen pipeline now in service between the power plant and Polimeri Europa

Venice, – Two landmark events have been achieved at Enel’s hydrogen-fuelled power plant near Venice. Just a few days after the new hydrogen pipeline supplied by Polimeri Europa (ENI) went into service, the power plant has successfully begun generating power fuelled 100% by hydrogen.

The people of Venice are the first in the world to benefit from power generated by the world’s largest industrial-sized “zero emissions” power plant: Enel’s 100% hydrogen-fuelled plant at Fusina.

After the building site was officially opened in April 2008, infrastructure and technology work was carried out on schedule. Initial testing of the turbine using methane gas was conducted in the spring of 2009 and now – after the completion of the special pipeline – the plant has switched to 100% hydrogen fuelling

The initial input of electricity onto the grid from the fully operational plant is a world-beating technological achievement. No plant of this type had ever even been tested before. The combustor was specifically developed exclusively for this project by Enel’s Research team, in partnership with General Electric Oil & Gas – Nuovo Pignone.

The Fusina hydrogen plant has a capacity of 12 MW, as well as an additional 4 MW generated through re-use of heated gas produced by the hydrogen-fuelled turbine in the existing coal-fired plant. The electricity generated, equal to about 60 million kWh a year, will be sufficient to meet the needs of 20,000 households, and avoid more than 17,000 metric tons of CO2 emissions a year. In accordance with an agreement signed in 2008, the hydrogen used to fuel the Enel power plant is provided by the Polimeri Europa cracker (ENI), which utilizes hydrogen to run its own plants.

The plant, which is the first of its kind in the world, is located at Enel’s “Andrea Palladio” Fusina plant, thanks to a supply of hydrogen produced as a by-product in the manufacturing process at the adjacent petrochemical facility of Porto Marghera (Venice).

The plant is just one project under the aegis of Hydrogen Park, a consortium formed in 2003 on the initiative of the Venice Industrial Union with about 4 million euros in funding from the Region of Veneto and the Ministry for the Environment. The consortium seeks to promote the development and implementation of hydrogen technologies in transportation and electricity generation in the Porto Marghera area.

The “Andrea Palladio” plant stands as a symbol of Enel’s commitment and determination to meet the challenge of generating abundant electricity at competitive costs, while at the same time respecting the environment. In addition to its hydrogen-fuelled plant, Fusina is a trailblazer because it has made its entire generating cycle environmentally-friendly, safely using every year 70,000 metric tons of RDF (refuse-derived fuel), a fuel obtained from separated solid waste. The equivalent of the waste produced by 300,000 people is used in place of coal to fuel the plant’s boilers. Not only does this recover the energy contained in the waste, it avoids sending the waste to landfill sites.

The Ohio Fuel Cell Coalition (OFCC), in conjunction with the Ohio Northern University T. J. Smull College of Engineering and the Ohio Energy and Advanced Manufacturing Center, will conduct a fuel cell forum at The Inn at ONU on Friday, Aug. 21, at 9 a.m.

Supported by the U.S. Department of Energy (USDOE), this two-hour event will discuss hydrogen and fuel cell technology in Ohio and its role in the state’s economy. It also will focus on the developing opportunities associated with hydrogen and fuel cells. The USDOE is promoting 10 educational events throughout Ohio to highlight fuel cells as one of Ohio’s strong technology sectors and educate Ohio regional leaders on this emerging technology.

Scheduled to speak at the event are Patrick Valente, director of the OFCC, Dr. Michael Martin, vice president of Alternative Energy Technologies at Edison Materials Technology Center, Steve Hatkevich, research and development director at American Trim, and Eric Jensen, research and development manager at Crown Equipment Corporation.

Since 2002, Ohio has invested more than $70 million in fuel cells, and the industry has leveraged an additional $200 million of federal investments leading to new and growing fuel cell activities. Fuel cells are clean and efficient in their use of energy and offer a low carbon footprint, which leads to an environmentally friendly source of alternative power.

Fuel cells are used commercially for stationary grid power, backup power, lift trucks, laptop computers and a variety of other portable and stationary applications. Much of this activity takes place in Ohio. The U.S. military has utilized fuel cells in sensors, surveillance, communications and computing devices.