8th Grove Fuel Cell Symposium
ExCel Docklands, London, U.K.
September 24-26, 2003

by Nigel Fitzpatrick, D.I.C., Ph.D.

Acquire Innovations Corp.
Vancouver, British Columbia

The biennial Grove conference is named after William Grove who was born in Swansea, Wales, in 1811, and graduated from Oxford University in 1832. After developing a battery that would find use in the U.S. he developed the first fuel cell that consumed gas in 1839. On September 24-26, we were assembled in his name to review fuel cell progress. With the U.K. scheduled to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Suez crisis after becoming a net importer of natural gas in 2005, there was a sense of urgency. The symposium was electric in many ways!

ExCel is some physical distance from the center of London, but most traveled there by the excellent electric Docklands Light Railway. Ford made good use of the distance. A hybrid fuel cell-powered Focus, based at the ExCel conference center, crossed half of London on the evening of the 23rd, to Canada House in Trafalgar Square. The driver and navigator for the historic journey were Phil Chizek (pchizek@ford.com) and Mark Sulek (msulek@ford.com). Afterwards Chizek said “the car performed flawlessly” but that it had been a tense evening “driving on the wrong side of the street and the wrong side of the car.”

With 580 registrants and over 110 exhibitors, we were a fairly healthy group, but still small inside the vast ExCel center where two restaurants were closed for lack of customers. Relative to the recent Vancouver conference I was intrigued by the appearance of materials companies who have seen that much of the added value of a fuel cell can be theirs. These companies arrive with revenues in their normal markets. To them the refinements needed for membrane electrode assemblies (MEAs) or gas distribution plates are incremental steps; in a sense improvements to fuel cells are now on auto pilot. We can expect costs to fall. The supply chain companies are also helping in the search for the early markets.

The newly formed industry group Fuel Cells U.K. dominated the entrance to the show and I took advice from its coordinator, Celia Greaves (cgreaves@synnogy.co.uk), on supply companies to talk to.

A good example was Morgan Fuel Cell, (www.morganfuelcell.com) part of the Morgan Crucible Company. I was drawn to their stand and was walked through Morgan Fuel Cell technology and products by an enthusiastic Ian Mellor (ian.mellor@morganplc.com). Morgan was an early supplier to Ballard, and their stand featured a range of bipolar plates of varying conductivity for different PEMFC and DMFC applications. My press kit included a release about their new Bio-mimetic™ technology, which results in a more uniform distribution of air over the cathode side of a bipolar plate. Morgan claims a 16% increase in power density as well as a reduction in parasitic losses in the sub-system as the power required to drive air through the cell is significantly reduced due to lower pressure drops over the plates. To date the development work has focused largely on PEMFC-based systems; however, it also has potential benefits when applied to DMFC and SOFC platforms.

Anthony Marrett (anthony.marrett@microponents. co.uk) of Microponents Ltd. talked to me about metallic bipolar plates that were being examined for a 10kW PEMFC supported by the Department of Trade and Industry. Here, thin titanium or stainless steel plates are coated to maintain surface conductivity. Already they show that their material has been used in a 5kW stack which produced 6kW and exceeded its power density objectives. If successful, this could be remarkable as Microponents has the largest volume etching plant in Europe and produces thousands of tons of metal plates.

It is not only in the U.K. that suppliers are providing a lead. A U.S. supplier with ambition was Entegris who bill themselves as the “materials integrity management company.” I spoke with John Goodman, president of Entegris’ Fuel Cell Market (john_goodman@ entegris.com). Their sales of $249 million into the semiconductor, data-storage and life science business results in their ability to examine new niches with their skill sets without the normal fuel cell company dependence on the stock market. Goodman said they are spending their own dollars on two niches a) life science and b) fuel cells. He spoke of excellent market projections for portable and stationary applications. Their methods are proactive; for example, Entegris recently announced the purchase and operation of a 5kW Plug Power unit in their own facility. Entegris, a bipolar plate and component supplier, claims a goal of “advancing fuel cells from concept to commercialization.”

In U.S. supplier mode, I moved to the Gore stand (www.wlgore.com) where I learned of their interest in gaining added value in membrane electrode assemblies (MEAs) for PEM fuel assemblies. I was delighted to point out that they were within eyeshot of a company using Goretex™ in their product. This was MagPower Systems Inc.’s busy booth, to which I will return.

From Germany there was Umicor Ag and Co. Kg (www.eu.umicore.com) who produce fuel processing catalysts and electrocatalysts and are adding value to their product with MEAs.

I tore myself away from the exhibition and caught the end of a presentation by Chris de Koning of Shell Hydrogen (chris.dekoning@shell.com). When asked his view on the new supercharged, low emission 40% efficient 2.3 liter hydrogen engine that Ford is describing at EVS20 in November, de Koning stressed an interest at Shell Hydrogen in producing hydrogen for fuel cells.

In the afternoon session, Michael Jones of BP (jonesmid@bp.com) spoke about hydrogen infrastructure and particularly described BP’s hydrogen refueling station in Barcelona, announced at the conference to support the hydrogen fuel cell bus program. There were questions on full cycle emissions and it was clear that Jones understood the issues.