A UK company - CMR Fuel Cells - says it has developed a fuel cell design that is around one-tenth of the size of current models, making it small enough to be used as a battery in a laptop computer, and has a running time around four times that of the equivalent standard battery.
Meanwhile in the US, a research team from Northwestern University in Chicago has developed an innovative catalyst design that may prevent carbon build-up on the anode, or positive contact, of a fuel cell.
Currently, one solution to the problem is to build in a separate fuel reformer that converts fuel to pure hydrogen before injecting it into the fuel cell, but this requires extra space and another step in the fuel delivery process.
The Northwestern team has devised a catalyst layer that can be placed over the anode and lets the fuel re-form within the fuel cell itself, saving space and allowing hydrocarbons to be used directly inside fuel cells.
The covering is a thin layer of ruthenium-cerium dioxide between layers of zirconia, the ruthenium-cerium dioxide accelerating the process of extracting hydrogen from a hydrocarbon fuel source.
The solid oxide fuel cell prototype developed by the team produces power densities of 0.3-0.6 watts per square centimetre, as opposed to the 0.1 watts produced by other solid oxide cells using hydrocarbon fuels.
According to the researchers, the design could see commercial application within fuel cell vehicles in the next four years, while implementation as an auxiliary vehicle power source for lights, radio and heat could be achieved sooner.
Back across the Atlantic, CMR Fuel Cells claims its miniaturised fuel cells developed not only have a long running time but could be instantly recharged.
The cells will initially run on methanol and apparently have a new type of fuel stack that mixes air and water, unlike comparable designs that separate the two.
Conventional fuel cell designs use flow-field plates to separately deliver fuel and oxidants, these plates accounting for around a third of the cost and 90% of the volume and weight of fuel cells.
The CMR cell will use a fully porous anode-electrolyte-cathode assembly which both fuel and oxidant can flow through, creating the greatly reduced size and cost profile, according to CMR chief executive officer John Halfpenny.
“We firmly believe CMR technology is the equivalent of the jump from transistors to integrated circuits,” he said.
