worldwide race is on to make fuel-cell technology commercially viable for industrial and other applications as mandates to reduce or eliminate carbon emissions take hold. Ceramic Fuel Cells Ltd. of Australia, Ceres Power Holdings plc in the U.K. and Baxi Innotech of Germany are among the players with skin in the game. Affordability has been one obstacle as manufacturers of fuel cells seek to recoup development costs. Temperature issues inherent in the technology are another.
      Meanwhile, in the U.S., German chemical giant BASF on May 6 opened its BASF Fuel Cell GmbH production facility in Somerset, N.J., where it will manufacture ready-for-use, high-temperature Membrane Electrode Assembly (MEA) units for fuel cells under the brand name Celtec®. In an MEA, hydrogen and air react to water, generating electrical power and heat.
      Conventional low-temperature fuel cell systems, which operate at a maximum of 175 degrees F (80 degrees Celsius), need a large number of ancillary units, a complex control and hydration system and a reformer with a hydrogen gas purification unit to function. Fuel cells equipped with BASF's Celtec® MEA are tolerant to impurities in the hydrogen gas; they can be cooled by the air and do not have to be hydrated with water. This eliminates the need for air humidifiers, water pumps, tanks, valves and cleaning systems, and allows the fuel cells to operate at temperatures in the range of 320 to 360 degrees F (120 to 180 C).       "BASF has made a decisive breakthrough in fuel cells with the development of the high-temperature MEA," said Dr. Andreas Kreimeyer, research executive director and member of the board of executive directors of BASF, at the facility opening in Somerset. "The aim of the world-class Somerset, New Jersey, facility is to meet the current and greatly increasing demand from customers. Future enhancements and refinements of BASF's proprietary MEA product in conjunction with system developments by our alternative energy partners will make fuel cell energy realistic, affordable and widely available."
      Celtec® MEAs are used in numerous applications, including private-home electricity and heat-supply units, providing electricity and hot water or back-up systems to ensure electrical power. And they can fly.
      More to the point, they are powering the Antares DLR-H2 motor glider built by the Deutschen Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR), or German Aerospace Center, on the campus of the University of Stuttgart-Vaihingin in Stuttgart, Germany, and Lange Aviation GmbH, based in Zweibrücken, Germany. The glider was built specifically to test the fuel cell's suitability to aerospace applications.
      "BASF is participating in the pilot project to promote an innovative energy technology which will really be taking off in the near future, and not just on board aircraft," emphasizes Dr. Carsten Henschel of BASF Fuel Cell. "In times of scarce energy resources the fuel cell can, for example, help maintain security of supply, because hydrogen can be obtained from a wide variety of sources – from wind or solar energy and from natural gas or diesel. Moreover, it is much more efficient than conventional energy technologies, and the only waste gas it emits is water vapor."       To make a fuel cell capable of producing sufficient electricity for practical applications, such as powering the motor glider, several cells are combined into a fuel cell stack, according to BASF Fuel Cell. This is because a single cell can only deliver a voltage of about 600 to 700 millivolts. The Danish company Serenergy has developed a lightweight, air-cooled stack system built for the Antares, consisting of many hundreds of cells with MEAs. Each of the MEAs is enclosed in a matrix of electrically conductive graphite plates. The plates connect the individual cells together, conduct the electricity onwards and supply the MEAs with hydrogen and oxygen through special ducts. With these combined forces, the fuel cell is capable of lifting the Antares airborne.
      "Following the test flights in the Antares, we intend to install the fuel cell in our Airbus A320, where it will be optimized for use in wide-bodied aircraft to make the on-board electricity supply more efficient in the future," explains Dr. Josef Kallo of the DLR in Stuttgart. Installed in a wide-bodied aircraft, the fuel cell would be a real all-rounder: Not only can the electricity it generates be used to supply energy, the by-products heat and water could also serve as "antifreeze" for the wings and to supply the washrooms. The DLR test series with the Antares are scheduled for completion in 2010, and the fuel cell will then take off for the first time in DLR's "A320 ATRA."