FuelCellsWorks

The 22-foot New Clermont, powered solely by hydrogen fuel cells, will launch from Pier 84 in Manhattan on September 21 and sail up the Hudson River to arrive in Troy, N.Y. on the evening of September 25. The project was conceived and is led by students at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

A group of ambitious Rensselaer students will soon sail up the Hudson River, propelled by pollution-free hydrogen fuel cells and a clear vision for a cleaner, greener future.

Their boat, the 22-foot New Clermont, is fit with a pair of 2.2-kilowatt fuel cell units. With a crew of three, the ship will launch from Pier 84 in Manhattan on September 21 and cruise at a cool 6 mph to arrive in Troy on the evening of September 25. The group is planning to make several stops along the way, showing off their one-of-a-kind boat, speaking with other green-minded individuals, and talking about the many environmental and potential economic benefits of building out the nation’s hydrogen economy.

“At its core, the New Clermont Project is about awareness. It’s a fun way to teach people about hydrogen energy,” said doctoral student William Gathright, who founded the group in early 2009. “We’re high-tech environmentalists. We want to share our vision of a time when people can take a pleasure cruise on their boat, or drive to the store, without leaving a trail of pollution and toxins behind them. We hope to inspire and challenge them to think of ways of making that vision a reality.”

Gathright, a doctoral student in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering and a National Science Foundation IGERT Fellow who is also pursuing a master’s degree in management from Rensselaer’s Lally School of Management & Technology, has assembled a volunteer team of undergraduate and graduate students from a wide spectrum of academic disciplines. New Clermont team members are not receiving any course credit for the project.

The first few months of the project entailed recruiting a team with skills and expertise in materials science and engineering, electrical and systems engineering, management, and communications. Their only physical asset, at first, was the boat itself – a forgotten, neglected vessel that Gathright promptly renamed the New Clermont. The 40-year-old sailboat is a Bristol 22, sometimes called a Bristol Caravel, and measures 22 feet from aft to bow.

Along with major repairs, maintenance, and scrubbing away two decades worth of grime, Gathright and cohorts used their engineering know-how to prep the New Clermont to hold and support a pair of fuel cell units. The units, which are GenDrive class 3 systems on loan to the students from Latham, N.Y.-based fuel cell developer Plug Power, each weigh about 500 pounds and stand three feet wide by three feet tall. The team used a crane to lift the units into the New Clermont and sit them on specially engineered, homemade mounts.

“This project, from beginning to end, has certainly been an exercise in creative problem solving,” Gathright said. “But you know what? We’re Rensselaer students. Innovating and problem solving is what we do best.”

The New Clermont’s fuel cell units run on compressed hydrogen gas. A special membrane within the fuel cell systems separates the hydrogen into electrons and protons. The protons pass through the membrane and the electrons travel around a circuit, which creates electricity. After passing through the membrane, the protons and electrons are exposed to oxygen from the ambient air, which results in the creation of water and a small amount of heat. The electrochemical process is entirely pollution-free. The fuel cells power a pair of motors mounted on the stern of the New Clermont. Team members modified the store-bought engines to accept input from the fuel cell units.

Along with boosting the visibility and public awareness of hydrogen, fuel cells, and green energy, the New Clermont Project is also a celebration of American ingenuity and the rich technological history of New York state and the Hudson River. The project and boat are named after and will closely mirror the route of the world’s first commercial steamboat, the Clermont, which renowned captain Robert Fulton sailed from New York to Albany in the first years of the 19th century – almost exactly 200 years ago.

The New Clermont Project also coincides with the 400-year anniversary of Henry Hudson’s historic trek up what would eventually become the Hudson River.

“Just as Robert Fulton wanted to prove to the world that steam was a viable, economical means to power boats and unleash the economic potential of our waterways, we want to open people’s eyes to the viability of hydrogen and fuel cells as a way to power boats, and one day maybe even our cars, trucks, and homes,” said Lally School MBA student Leah Rollhaus, who helps lead the New Clermont Project.

The New Clermont Project had a busy summer, from participating in the annual Clearwater Festival to networking with the Capital Region and New York business communities to rally support and build a buzz around the September voyage. Along the way, the New Clermont Project also became a member group of the Rensselaer Student Sustainability Task Force, and joined ranks with the Institute’s Severino Center for Technological Entrepreneurship. The New Clermont will end its voyage at the docks of Rensselaer’s home town of Troy, N.Y., during the monthly Troy Night Out celebration.

“It’s been an outstanding experience, and I can’t wait to set sail, meet all sorts of interesting new people during our five-day voyage, and hopefully impress upon everyone that – with a little effort – we can all take ownership of the future and do our part to make this Earth a cleaner and greener place.”

For more information on the New Clermont Project visit www.newclermont.org.

The forklift manufacturer DanTruck A/S and the company H2 Logic A/S have entered into a cooperation regarding development and commercialization of pollution-free hydrogen powered forklifts.

Pollution-free forklifts

The hydrogen-powered forklift releases no particles harmful to the environment and can improve the utilization of fuel compared to diesel and LPG forklifts. Hydrogen can be produced on the basis of renewable energy and can therefore completely remove the CO2 emission from forklifts.

Apart from the environmental effects of hydrogen in forklifts, there is also a financial advantage to the users. The improved grade of utilization compared to diesel and gas can reduce the operating costs and improve the environment at the same time.

Large niche market

Even though the great attention to hydrogen has been focused primarily on cars, the forklift market is an obvious niche market. As forklifts are used considerably more intensive than cars, a larger environmental effect and CO2 reduction compared to number of vehicles can be obtained. In the most intensively used forklifts, hydrogen in one forklift can remove CO2 equivalent to the yearly emission from eight cars. In addition to this, forklifts are often used in larger fleets in a small geographical area where hydrogen refuelling stations and infrastructure can be concentrated.

Even though the forklift market is a niche market compared to cars, the yearly world market for forklifts is more than 150 billion DKK. The business potential is also the reason for the development cooperation between DanTruck and H2 Logic.

Market introduction in 2010

Last year the first steps to the cooperation were taken where testing of hydrogen forklifts was carried out by end users in Denmark. At the moment DanTruck A/S and H2 Logic A/S are developing 2nd generation hydrogen forklifts expected to be introduced on the market 1st quarter 2010.

The above has no influence on previous announcement regarding expectations of 2009 and 2010, cf. stock exchange announcement no. 71/2009, dated 14th August 2009.

Statements

Mr. Niels Lauritzen, Managing Director of DanTruck A/S, says the following about the agreement: “Today DanTruck is one of the leading manufacturers in Europe when it comes to quiet and environmentally friendly forklifts. The use of hydrogen and fuel cells is therefore a natural step to us in order to maintain and develop this position. The agreement with H2 Logic is a unique and powerful opportunity for a close and effective Danish development cooperation.”

Mr. Jacob Krogsgaard, Director of H2 Logic A/S, says the following about the agreement: ”The ambition for H2 Logic is to be among the world’s three leading suppliers of fuel cell systems for forklifts. This requires a close cooperation with forklift manufacturers, and the cooperation with DanTruck A/S is the first important step.”

Imagine a car that runs on hydrogen from solar power and produces water instead of carbon emissions. While vehicles like this won’t be on the market anytime soon, University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers are making incremental but important strides in the fuel cell technology that could make clean cars a reality.

Materials science and engineering assistant professor Dane Morgan and Ph.D. student Edward (Ted) Holby have developed a computational model that could optimize an important component of fuel cells, making it possible for the technology to have a more widespread use. Essentially, they investigate how particle size relates to the overall stability of a material, and their model has shown that increasing the particle size of a fuel cell catalyst decreases degradation and therefore increases the useful lifetime of a fuel cell.

Fuel cells are electrochemical devices that facilitate a reaction between hydrogen and oxygen, producing electrical power and forming water. In the type of fuel cells Morgan is researching, called proton exchange membrane fuel cells, or PEMFCs, hydrogen is split into a proton and electron at one side of the fuel cell (the anode). The proton moves through the device while the electron is forced to travel in an external circuit, where it can perform useful work. At the other side of the fuel cell (the cathode), the protons, electrons and oxygen combine to form water, which is the only waste product.

Though the premise sounds straightforward, there are multiple hurdles to producing efficient fuel cells for widespread use. One of these hurdles is the catalyst added to aid the reaction between protons, electrons and oxygen at the cathode. Current fuel cells use platinum and platinum alloys as a catalyst. While platinum can withstand the corrosive fuel cell environment, it is expensive and not very abundant.

To maximize platinum use, researchers use catalysts made with platinum particles as small as two nanometers, which are approximately 10 atoms across. These tiny structures have a large surface area on which the fuel cell reaction occurs. However, platinum catalysts this small degrade very quickly.

“The stability of bulk versus nanoparticle materials can be understood intuitively by thinking of cheese,” says Morgan. “When you leave a large chunk of cheese out and the edges get crusty, the surface is destroyed, but you can cut that off and there is still a lot of cheese inside that is good.

“But if you crumble the cheese into tiny pieces and leave it out, you destroy all of your cheese because a larger fraction of the cheese is at the surface.”

Rapid catalyst degradation means the fuel cell doesn’t last long, and the U.S. Department of Energy estimates fuel cells must function for 5,000 hours, or approximately seven months of continuous use, to be practical for automotive energy solutions.

Morgan and Holby, who are working in collaboration with Professor Yang Shao-Horn from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, have found a possible solution to the rapid degradation problem: When it comes to catalyst particle size, sometimes smaller isn’t better.

Their modeling work, which is funded by 3M and the U.S. Department of Energy, shows that if the particle size of a platinum catalyst is increased to four or five nanometers, which is approximately 20 atoms across, the level of degradation significantly decreases. This means the catalyst and the fuel cell as a whole can continue to function for much longer than if the particle size was only two or three nanometers.

The research into the fundamental physics of particle size will be useful as scientists extend their platinum studies to exploring platinum alloys, which can reduce platinum consumption when used as fuel cell catalysts. Morgan is beginning to research models to study size effects on the stability of platinum alloys, such as copper-platinum and cobalt-platinum catalysts.

“Fuel cells are just one of many energy technologies — solar, battery, etc. — with enormous potential to reduce our dependence on oil and our carbon emissions,” says Morgan. “Computer simulation offers a powerful tool to understand and develop new materials at the heart of these energy technologies.”

by Sandra Knisely