The Hydrogen Supply Chain: Fuel cells for CHP & transport

1. The Hydrogen Supply Chain:Fuel cells for CHP & transport Dr Waldemar Bujalski Senior Research Fellow Fuel Cells and Hydrogen Group School of Engineering (ChemEng) Presentation at “Science City Hydrogen Energy Seminar” held at HRI, Wellesbourne on 22nd January 2010

2. Two major areas of Fuel Cells potential applications: • Combined Heat and Power (CHP) for domestic use • Transport (hybrid vehicles): • electric motor batteries topped up when needed by fuel cell using hydrogen as on board energy vector

3. AWM capital funding enabled us to expand research facilities • Building on our experience within the “RealSOFC” EU Framework 6 Project (2004-2008) in the Solid Oxide Fuel Cells testing area through: • Upgrading the laboratory (fabric, health and safety, etc) • Purchasing: • Additional test stations for both SOFC and PEMFC types • Combined Heat and Power units: • Laboratory CHP test rig for research (Baxi) • Beta CHP Unit for demonstration in real house (BCHA – Stourbridge) • Design Study and testing of hybrid vehicles from Microcab • Many more facilities related to hydrogen and fuel cells research including: analytical and diagnostic instruments, CHP units, computing hardware and software for modelling work, H2 refuelling station, etc.

4. SCRATCH Project • Building on the capital investment from AWM related EPSRC funding enabled to employ people to work with the newly acquired research facilities: • 5 Research Fellows working in different areas of the project and closely collaborating due to highly interdisciplinary and complementary nature of the project for 3 to 3.5 years • Research Technician to provide day to day support for undergraduate and postgraduate students and researchers involved in the project

5. Objectives for this work • In general, and in addition to already mentioned major objective of establishing supply chain in West Midlands for “clean hydrogen economy” and these involved: • Demonstration and validation of: • Potential of domestic CHP units as a replacement of boilers through basic research and comparison of different designs (i.e. PEMFC from Baxi and SOFC based design for improved performance) • Testing and improving design of hybrid vehicles through their practical use on the campus in multi-function duties e.g. “taxi”, post and/or food delivery, gardening/estates function and comparing their performance with present fleet • Fundamental research in fuel cells area (design, performance, improvement in material of construction, different modes of operation and testing for achieving more robust design with improved performance and longevity).

6. Building on past experience • Vast experience over many years (Professor K. Kendall and his co-workers and research students) working on: • Tubular SOFC’s testing • Range of fuels such as methane, propane and higher hydrocarbons, methanol, ethanol etc • Production and utilisation of biodiesel, etc. • In addition, our major involvement in EU FP6 RealSOFC“Realising reliable, durable energy efficient and cost effective SOFC systems”: • Project run over last 3.5 years (26 partners from 13 countries in Europe working on solving various problems of SOFC technology) • UBHAM Responsible partner for Work Task 1.4 “Cycled stack operation for 50 to 100 cycles at defined conditions” • Our specific task: • “Modelling and testing of planar stacks and modules (IP-SOFC) for predicting reliability and durability. Analysis of failure modes during cycling and study of electrochemical and mechanical performance during degradation” (testing of Rolls Royce tubes and Julich stacks)

7. Testing equipment from Advance Measurements Inc. (Canada) High tech testing facilities and fully automated mode of operation lasting for weeks or even months for a single run in order to achieve the task aims. Two more stations purchased from the Energy Theme capital funds.

8. Results of a typical run showing the planned 50 load cycles CFD

9. Cathode Deterioration of Rolls Royce tube performance - thermal cycling

10. Short stack from Jülich – load cycling Short stack in the furnace after load cycle testing

11. Outcomes • Participation in Government (DTI) Missions to Korea in Energy and Fuel Cells related field looking for potential collaboration • Posters and presentations at Fuel Cells Symposia/Seminars and workshops in this country and abroad (Romania, Switzerland, Brussels, etc.) • Invited lectures (e.g. Institute of Physics, Combustion Physics Group at Cambridge) • Participation in national and international organisations such as Midlands Hydrogen Forum, UK Hydrogen Association, HyRamp (EU), etc. • Memorandum of Understanding with Ontario (Canada) initiated by Dr B. Pollet (2009).

12. Outcomes (continued) • Some publications in open literature and conference proceedings: • Bujalski, W., J. Paragreen, G. Reade, S. Pyke and K. Kendall, "Cycling studies of solid oxide fuel cells", J.Power Sources157, 745 (3-7-2006). • Kendall, K., C. M.Dickwal and W. Bujalski, "Comparative Analysis of Thermal and Redox Cycling for Microtubular SOFCs", in "10th International Symposium on Solid Oxide Fuel Cells, June 3-8, 2007, Nara, Japan", ECS Transactions, Pennington, NJ, 7, 1521 (2007). • Bujalski, W., C. M. Dickwal and K. Kendall, "Cycling of three solid oxide fuel cell types", J.Power Sources171, 96-100 (2007). • Dickwal, C. M., W.Bujalski and K. Kendall, "Characterization of the electrochemical performance of micro-tubular SOFC in partial reduction and oxidation conditions", J.Power Sources181, 267-273 (2008). • Kendall, K. andW.Bujalski, " Cycling performance of Solid Oxide Fuel Cells for 1MWe CHP", Proceedings of the 9th International Colloquium on Environmentally Preferred Advanced Power Generation, ICEPAG2009-1078, February 10-12, 2009, Newport Beach, California, USA,pp. 1-5. • Dickwal, C. M., W.Bujalski and K. Kendall, "The effect of temperature gradients on thermal cycling and isothermal ageing of micro-tubular solid oxide fuel cells", J.Power Sources193, 241-248 (2009). • Chaurasia, P.B.L., K. Kendall, W. Bujalski, S. Du and B.G. Pollet, “Influence of temperature on V-I characteristics for solar power generation based on chemical method using fuel cell”, International Journal of Chemical Sciences 7, 1893-1904.

13. Capital investment and manpower • Thanks to investments from both AWM (Capital) and EPSRC (Revenue) for establishing Supply Chain Research for broadly understood “Clean Hydrogen Economy” in the region (e.g. Science City and now also other themes) we have made some significant progress towards involving West Midlands in the process which, in a long term, can also offer: • Opportunities of further collaboration within UK and overseas through: • Possibility of attracting further funding based on excellent research facilities and expanding scope of our interests via collaboration with similar regions overseas including USA, Canada, Japan, Korea and EU. • Increasing our standing in both innovative and applied science through dissemination events, publications in open literature, education of general public, demonstration projects, etc.

14. Acknowledgements

15. Thank you!