Supply Chain Research Applied To Clean Hydrogen

The Hydrogen Supply Chain:Fuel cells for CHP & transport

Dr Waldemar BujalskiSenior Research Fellow

Fuel Cells and Hydrogen GroupSchool of Engineering (ChemEng)

Presentation at “Science City Hydrogen Energy Seminar” held at HRI, Wellesbourne on 22nd January 2010

Supply Chain Research Applied To Clean Hydrogen

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

Supply Chain Research Applied To Clean Hydrogen

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.

Supply Chain Research Applied To Clean Hydrogen

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

Supply Chain Research Applied To Clean Hydrogen

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).

Supply Chain Research Applied To Clean Hydrogen

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)

Supply Chain Research Applied To Clean Hydrogen

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.

Supply Chain Research Applied To Clean Hydrogen

Results of a typical run showing the planned 50 load cycles

Full experimental run of Rolls Royce module for 50 current load cycles

Time, [min]

0 2000 4000 6000 8000 10000

Va

rio

us

vari

able

s, [

deg

C;

V;

A;

mo

l %

]

0

5

10

15

20

600

800

1000

LBD1 [deg C] LBC3 [deg C] LMD1 [deg C] RMD1 [deg C] LTD1 [deg C] LTC3 [deg C] RTD2 [deg C] RTC1 [deg C] StackVoltage [V]Air Flow [l/min] Nitrogen Flow [l/min]Hydrogen Flow [l/min]Current Load [A]Furnace Temp [deg C]Humidifier [mol %]PreHeater [deg C]

Full experimental run of Rolls Royce module for 50 current load cycles

Time, [min]

0 2000 4000 6000 8000 10000

Va

rio

us

vari

able

s, [

deg

C;

V;

A;

mo

l %

]

0

5

10

15

20

600

800

1000

LBD1 [deg C] LBC3 [deg C] LMD1 [deg C] RMD1 [deg C] LTD1 [deg C] LTC3 [deg C] RTD2 [deg C] RTC1 [deg C] StackVoltage [V]Air Flow [l/min] Nitrogen Flow [l/min]Hydrogen Flow [l/min]Current Load [A]Furnace Temp [deg C]Humidifier [mol %]PreHeater [deg C]

CFD

Supply Chain Research Applied To Clean Hydrogen

Deterioration of Rolls Royce tube performance - thermal cycling

Thermal cycling at 10 C/min up (5 C/min down to 500C and 2 C/min down to 200 or 50 C)

7.00

7.50

8.00

8.50

9.00

9.50

10.00

10.50

11.00

0 0.1 0.2 0.3

Specific current load, i, [A/cm2]

U,

[V]

Initial IV

1st temperature cycle

2nd

3rd

4th

5th

6th

7th

8th

9th

10th

11th

12th (50 C)

13th (50 C)

14th

15th

16th

17th

18th

19th

20th

21st

22nd

Thermal cycling at 10 C/min up (5 C/min down to 500C and 2 C/min down to 200 or 50 C)

7.00

7.50

8.00

8.50

9.00

9.50

10.00

10.50

11.00

0 0.1 0.2 0.3

Specific current load, i, [A/cm2]

U,

[V]

Initial IV

1st temperature cycle

2nd

3rd

4th

5th

6th

7th

8th

9th

10th

11th

12th (50 C)

13th (50 C)

14th

15th

16th

17th

18th

19th

20th

21st

22nd

Cathode

Supply Chain Research Applied To Clean Hydrogen

Short stack from Jülich – load cycling

Julich 2 Cell Stack (F1 version tested at 800oC)

Load cycle number, [-]

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50

Sta

ck V

olta

ge

, [V

]

1.70

1.75

1.80

1.90

1.95

2.00

Open Circuit Voltage (OCV), [V] Stack Voltage under load of 16A, [V]

Julich 2 Cell Stack (F1 version tested at 800oC)

Load cycle number, [-]

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50

Sta

ck V

olta

ge

, [V

]

1.70

1.75

1.80

1.90

1.95

2.00

Open Circuit Voltage (OCV), [V] Stack Voltage under load of 16A, [V]

Short stack in the furnace after load cycle testing

Supply Chain Research Applied To Clean Hydrogen

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).

Supply Chain Research Applied To Clean Hydrogen

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 Sources 157, 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 Sources 171, 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 Sources 181, 267-273 (2008).

– Kendall, K. and W. 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 Sources 193, 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.

Supply Chain Research Applied To Clean Hydrogen

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.

Supply Chain Research Applied To Clean Hydrogen

Acknowledgements

Supply Chain Research Applied To Clean Hydrogen

Thank you!