Supergen Fuel Cell Consortium - Fuel cells - Powering a Greener Future - CORE

Completed

Hydrogen and Fuel Cells(Fuel Cells)

Basic and strategic applied research

PHYSICAL SCIENCES AND MATHEMATICS (Chemistry)
PHYSICAL SCIENCES AND MATHEMATICS (Metallurgy and Materials)
ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY (Chemical Engineering)
ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY (Mechanical, Aeronautical and Manufacturing Engineering)

Not Cross-cutting

Professor K Scott
School of Chemical Engineering & Advanced Materials
Newcastle University

Standard

EPSRC

01 September 2009

28 February 2014

54 months

£3,577,942

Energy

North East

Energy : Energy

Professor K Scott, School of Chemical Engineering & Advanced Materials, Newcastle University

Dr C Adjiman, Chemical Engineering, Imperial College London
Professor A Atkinson, Materials, Imperial College London
Professor NP Brandon, Earth Science and Engineering, Imperial College London
Dr D Brett, Chemical Engineering, University College London
Dr M Cassidy, Chemistry, University of St Andrews
Professor PA Christensen, School of Chemical Engineering & Advanced Materials, Newcastle University
Dr PA Connor, Chemistry, University of St Andrews
Dr JA Elliott, Materials Science & Metallurgy, University of Cambridge
Professor J Irvine, Chemistry, University of St Andrews
Professor JA Kilner, Materials, Imperial College London
Prof A Kucernak, Chemistry, Imperial College London
Dr CD Savaniu, Chemistry, University of St Andrews
Dr S Tao, Chemical and Process Engineering, University of Strathclyde

Project Contact, Rolls-Royce Fuel Cell Systems Ltd
Project Contact, Johnson Matthey Technology Centre
Project Contact, Ceres Power Limited
Project Contact, Intelligent Energy

Fuel Cells continue to receive considerable attention as clean, highly efficient devices for the production of both electricity and, for some applications, high grade waste heat. However, considerable technical challenges remain for fuel cell to achieve greater penetration into commercial markets. It is worth emphasising the shift in research landscape within which the Supergen fuel cell consortium is operating. As fuel cell technology continues to mature, the fuel cell research community isbeing asked to place increasing emphasis on improving its fundamental understanding of materials behaviour under realistic operating conditions and duty cycles, especially where this relates to failure modes, and materials/cell degradation. Thus the work programme of this second phase will very muchfocus on generic and fundamental research, targeted onto real problems identified in discussion with our industry partners. This means that during this second phase, it will remain the case thatthe Supergen consortium will put an emphasis on knowledge transfer to industry, though of course patents will be filed where appropriate. It is then largely the responsibility of the industry partners toexploit this knowledge in the context of their own technology programmeThe proposed second phase of the Supergen fuel cell consortium refreshes the membership, with three new academics; Kucernak (Imperial), Brett (UCL) and Elliott (Cambridge) and with four academic teams continuing; Brandon (Imperial), Scott (Newcastle), Atkinson (Imperial) and Irvine (St Andrews). All three industry partners remain within the consortium for its second phase; Rolls-Royce Fuel Cell Systems, Ceres Power and Johnson Matthey, with the addition of a fourth new industry partner, Intelligent Energy. This new team maintains the consortium strength in Solid Oxide Fuel Cells, whilst adding significant extra capacity in Polymer Fuel Cells within both the industry and academic teams. This provides a shift in emphasis within the consortium to developing an improved understanding of failure modes and performance limitations within current fuel cell devices, and the need for greater scientific understanding to tackle these failure modes.In addition the consortium will continue to deliver its training courses in fuel cell science and engineering to consortium staff and students, external researchers to theconsortium and to appropriate Doctoral Training Centres and to disseminate the work of the consortium (through publication and conference presentation, including an annual open conference) and to extend its international collaboration

23/12/08