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RP fuels a breakthrough for clean energy

SINGAPORE — Researchers at Republic Polytechnic (RP) have made breakthroughs in fuel cell technology that could enable more widespread use of the clean energy source in three to five years’ time.

Republic Polytechnic senior academic staff Dr Wang Yihua with the fuel cell system he developed with his team. Electricity generated from the system is powering the table lamp and LED signboard. Photo: Neo Chai Chin

Republic Polytechnic senior academic staff Dr Wang Yihua with the fuel cell system he developed with his team. Electricity generated from the system is powering the table lamp and LED signboard. Photo: Neo Chai Chin

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SINGAPORE — Researchers at Republic Polytechnic (RP) have made breakthroughs in fuel cell technology that could enable more widespread use of the clean energy source in three to five years’ time.

Fuel cells have been earmarked in recent years for potential use in automobiles, portable devices, and in power generation for homes and businesses, but the hydrogen storage capacity of the systems and their high costs have been stumbling blocks to broad commercial adoption.

RP’s system makes progress on both fronts: It is able to generate 30 per cent more hydrogen gas on demand for use in fuel cells than existing systems, and requires 21 per cent less of the expensive catalyst, platinum, to generate a certain amount of energy.

Its system, developed by the polytechnic’s senior academic staff Wang Yihua and his team, uses solid chemical hydrides — materials with high hydrogen content — to generate hydrogen gas.

The secret to the system’s higher hydrogen storage capacity — the amount of hydrogen that can be released by the system — lies in the way water is introduced into the generation tank, enabling it to react with a greater amount of the chemical hydrides within, said Dr Wang, 45.

The design is being patented and he declined to divulge further details, except to say that the team experimented with water tubes of different sizes in the process. Increasing the amount of hydrogen a system can generate is crucial to achieve lighter fuel cell systems, he said.

“You always want a light system, whether for (use in) unmanned aerial vehicles or portable chargers,” he said.

On the cost front, the researchers have managed to reduce the amount of platinum needed to catalyse the electro-chemical reaction of hydrogen and oxygen, by using carbon nanotubes as the catalyst support in the fuel cell.

The carbon nanotubes, which increase the surface area for the electro-chemical reaction and are good conductors of electricity, reduce the amount of platinum needed by 21 per cent.

Platinum is a very expensive metal costing about US$1,400 (S$1,750) per ounce, “so if we can reduce the platinum used in fuel cell, we can reduce the total cost”, said Dr Wang.

RP collaborated with ST Kinetics, the land systems and speciality vehicles arm of ST Engineering, and the Institute of Chemical and Engineering Sciences of the Agency for Science, Technology and Research on the project, which was awarded S$588,200 by the Ministry of Education Innovation Fund in 2011.

An ST Kinetics spokesperson said the polytechnic’s “innovative hydrogen-on-demand technology” opens up many applications for fuel cells including large stationary fuel cells to power buildings, small stationary ones for telecommunications, security systems and residential use, as well as portable ones for transportation use.

The average time frame for small-scale product development is three years and five years for large-scale product development, the spokesperson said.

The collaboration with RP could serve as “an enabler for more pervasive fuel cell deployment in society”.

Other tertiary institutions are also doing fuel cell research. Temasek Polytechnic’s Clean Energy Research Centre, for instance, is focusing on high-performance and affordable fuel cell systems for portable power applications.

It has filed five patents in areas, including hydrogen fuel management in the fuel cell stack, said Mr Cham Yew Thean, Manager of Temasek Polytechnic’s Fuel Cell Community.

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