MVTG JV Partner Alstom did not spend $1 million dollars in 6 Joint Venture partnership deals with MVTG , with out taking a close look under the hood of MVTG .
MVTG JV Partner Alstom has on going deals with Ballard , that predate the Alstom MVTG deals. One that I have seen Alstom press on is Ballard fuel cells in Buses in Europe being tested using European Gov. Grant funds that Alstom secured .
So comparing the Ballard fuel cell with the MVTG fuel cell let us start here with an introduction:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballard_Power_Systems
Note that I have bought and researched about $3000 worth of published works on fuel cell engineering, design, and fabrication, and I there is a lot more information in them, but It seems more appropriate to use what is on line for now and linkable to introduce and discuss and reference for readers here.
In that link, are many useful details for MVTG stockholders.
This is very interesting, and makes a point I have been convinced of for 15 years, and a US DOE >100 page document confirmed it.
Quote: Previously, Ballard had its focus within the automobile market, and fleet services, as well as co-generation systems and the manufacture of materials for the fuel-cell sector. However, in late 2007, Ballard pulled out of the hydrogen vehicle sector of its business to focus on fuel cells for forklifts and stationary electrical generation. The company sold its automotive fuel cell assets to Daimler AG and Ford Motor Company.
[2] Research Capital analyst Jon Hykawy concluded that Ballard saw the industry going nowhere and said: "In my view, the hydrogen car was never alive. The problem was never, "Could you build a fuel cell that would consume hydrogen, produce electricity, and fit in a car?" The problem was always, "Can you make hydrogen fuel at a price point that makes any sense to anybody?" And the answer to that to date has been "No ."[3]
That was just 1/3 of the problem, 2/3 was no H2 infrastructure, Politics, cost, chicken or egg syndrome (H2 stations or H2 cars first), 3/3 was the size and weight of the H2 storage tanks were prohibitive.
The core of Ballard fuel cells is the PEM, Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel cell design.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proton_exchange_..._fuel_cell
Quote: History
Before the invention of PEM fuel cells, existing fuel cell types such as solid-oxide fuel cells were only applied in extreme conditions. Such fuel cells also required very expensive materials and could only be used for stationary applications due to their size. These issues were addressed by the PEM fuel cell.
The PEM fuel cell was invented in the early 1960s by Willard Thomas Grubb and Leonard Niedrach of General Electric.[11] Initially, sulfonated polystyrene membranes were used for electrolytes, but they were replaced in 1966 by Nafion ionomer, which proved to be superior in performance and durability to sulfonated polystyrene.
PEM fuel cells were used in the NASA Gemini series of spacecraft, but they were replaced by Alkaline fuel cells in the Apollo program and in the Space shuttle.
Parallel with Pratt and Whitney Aircraft, General Electric developed the first proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) for the Gemini space missions in the early 1960s. The first mission to use PEMFCs was Gemini V. However, the Apollo space missions and subsequent Apollo-Soyuz, Skylab and Space Shuttle missions used fuel cells based on Bacon's design, developed by Pratt and Whitney Aircraft.
Extremely expensive materials were used and the fuel cells required very pure hydrogen and oxygen. Early fuel cells tended to require inconveniently high operating temperatures that were a problem in many applications. However, fuel cells were seen to be desirable due to the large amounts of fuel available (hydrogen and oxygen).[citation needed]
Despite their success in space programs, fuel cell systems were limited to space missions and other special applications, where high cost could be tolerated. It was not until the late 1980s and early 1990s that fuel cells became a real option for wider application base. Several pivotal innovations, such as low platinum catalyst loading and thin film electrodes, drove the cost of fuel cells down, making development of PEMFC systems more realistic. [12] However, there is significant debate as to whether hydrogen fuel cells will be a realistic technology for use in automobiles or other vehicles. (See hydrogen economy.)
Ballard went with the PEM Fuel cell designs.
The PEMFC is a prime candidate for vehicle and other mobile applications of all sizes down to mobile phones, because of its compactness.
However, the water management is crucial to performance: too much water will flood the membrane, too little will dry it; in both cases, power output will drop. Water management is a very difficult subject in PEM systems, primarily because water in the membrane is attracted toward the cathode of the cell through polarization .
A wide variety of solutions for managing the water exist including integration of electroosmotic pumps. Furthermore, the platinum catalyst on the membrane is easily poisoned by carbon monoxide (no more than one part per million is usually acceptable) and the membrane is sensitive to things like metal ions, which can be introduced by corrosion of metallic bipolar plates, metallic components in the fuel cell system or from contaminants in the fuel/oxidant.
THE MVTG MRFC FUEL CELL HAS NO MEMBRANE, MVTG ELIMINTATED USING FORMIC ACID INSTEAD OF H2 GAS AS THE FUEL.
PEM systems that use reformed methanol were proposed, as in Daimler Chrysler Necar
5; reforming methanol, i.e. making it react to obtain hydrogen, is however a very complicated process, that requires also purification from the carbon monoxide the reaction produces. A platinum-ruthenium catalyst is necessary as some carbon monoxide will unavoidably reach the membrane. The level should not exceed 10 parts per million.
Furthermore, the start-up times of such a reformer reactor are of about half an hour. Alternatively, methanol, and some other biofuels can be fed to a PEM fuel cell directly without being reformed, thus making a direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC). These devices operate with limited success.
BALLARD IS ALSO USING THE METHANOL PEM FUEL CELL WITH THE REFORMER MENTIONED ABOVE.
The most commonly used membrane is Nafion by DuPont, which relies on liquid water humidification of the membrane to transport protons. This implies that it is not feasible to use temperatures above 80 to 90 °C, since the membrane would dry. Other, more recent membrane types, based on polybenzimidazole (PBI) or phosphoric acid, can reach up to 220 °C without using any water management: higher temperature allow for better efficiencies, power densities, ease of cooling (because of larger allowable temperature differences), reduced sensitivity to carbon monoxide poisoning and better controlability (because of absence of water management issues in the membrane); however, these recent types are not as common.[4]
One of the books I mentioned, CRC Press, Fuel Technology Handbook, pg 4-14, Edited by Gregor Hoodges, says that the Membrane material cost of a PEM fuel cell, is one of the things that killed the automotive fuel cell vehicle projects. That cost for one square meter of the membrane is $500 to $1000/square meter, and the cost of the membrane alone for a fuel cell for one car exceeded the DOE estimated cost that needed to be reached for an entire car fuel cell power plant by the automotive industry to be able to build cost effective fuel cell cars.
THE MVTG MRFC, Mixed Reactant Fuel Cell eliminated the PEM Membrane entirely!!!!!
MVTG JV Partner Alstom has on going deals with Ballard , that predate the Alstom MVTG deals. One that I have seen Alstom press on is Ballard fuel cells in Buses in Europe being tested using European Gov. Grant funds that Alstom secured .
So comparing the Ballard fuel cell with the MVTG fuel cell let us start here with an introduction:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballard_Power_Systems
Note that I have bought and researched about $3000 worth of published works on fuel cell engineering, design, and fabrication, and I there is a lot more information in them, but It seems more appropriate to use what is on line for now and linkable to introduce and discuss and reference for readers here.
In that link, are many useful details for MVTG stockholders.
This is very interesting, and makes a point I have been convinced of for 15 years, and a US DOE >100 page document confirmed it.
Quote: Previously, Ballard had its focus within the automobile market, and fleet services, as well as co-generation systems and the manufacture of materials for the fuel-cell sector. However, in late 2007, Ballard pulled out of the hydrogen vehicle sector of its business to focus on fuel cells for forklifts and stationary electrical generation. The company sold its automotive fuel cell assets to Daimler AG and Ford Motor Company.
[2] Research Capital analyst Jon Hykawy concluded that Ballard saw the industry going nowhere and said: "In my view, the hydrogen car was never alive. The problem was never, "Could you build a fuel cell that would consume hydrogen, produce electricity, and fit in a car?" The problem was always, "Can you make hydrogen fuel at a price point that makes any sense to anybody?" And the answer to that to date has been "No ."[3]
That was just 1/3 of the problem, 2/3 was no H2 infrastructure, Politics, cost, chicken or egg syndrome (H2 stations or H2 cars first), 3/3 was the size and weight of the H2 storage tanks were prohibitive.
The core of Ballard fuel cells is the PEM, Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel cell design.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proton_exchange_..._fuel_cell
Quote: History
Before the invention of PEM fuel cells, existing fuel cell types such as solid-oxide fuel cells were only applied in extreme conditions. Such fuel cells also required very expensive materials and could only be used for stationary applications due to their size. These issues were addressed by the PEM fuel cell.
The PEM fuel cell was invented in the early 1960s by Willard Thomas Grubb and Leonard Niedrach of General Electric.[11] Initially, sulfonated polystyrene membranes were used for electrolytes, but they were replaced in 1966 by Nafion ionomer, which proved to be superior in performance and durability to sulfonated polystyrene.
PEM fuel cells were used in the NASA Gemini series of spacecraft, but they were replaced by Alkaline fuel cells in the Apollo program and in the Space shuttle.
Parallel with Pratt and Whitney Aircraft, General Electric developed the first proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) for the Gemini space missions in the early 1960s. The first mission to use PEMFCs was Gemini V. However, the Apollo space missions and subsequent Apollo-Soyuz, Skylab and Space Shuttle missions used fuel cells based on Bacon's design, developed by Pratt and Whitney Aircraft.
Extremely expensive materials were used and the fuel cells required very pure hydrogen and oxygen. Early fuel cells tended to require inconveniently high operating temperatures that were a problem in many applications. However, fuel cells were seen to be desirable due to the large amounts of fuel available (hydrogen and oxygen).[citation needed]
Despite their success in space programs, fuel cell systems were limited to space missions and other special applications, where high cost could be tolerated. It was not until the late 1980s and early 1990s that fuel cells became a real option for wider application base. Several pivotal innovations, such as low platinum catalyst loading and thin film electrodes, drove the cost of fuel cells down, making development of PEMFC systems more realistic. [12] However, there is significant debate as to whether hydrogen fuel cells will be a realistic technology for use in automobiles or other vehicles. (See hydrogen economy.)
Ballard went with the PEM Fuel cell designs.
The PEMFC is a prime candidate for vehicle and other mobile applications of all sizes down to mobile phones, because of its compactness.
However, the water management is crucial to performance: too much water will flood the membrane, too little will dry it; in both cases, power output will drop. Water management is a very difficult subject in PEM systems, primarily because water in the membrane is attracted toward the cathode of the cell through polarization .
A wide variety of solutions for managing the water exist including integration of electroosmotic pumps. Furthermore, the platinum catalyst on the membrane is easily poisoned by carbon monoxide (no more than one part per million is usually acceptable) and the membrane is sensitive to things like metal ions, which can be introduced by corrosion of metallic bipolar plates, metallic components in the fuel cell system or from contaminants in the fuel/oxidant.
THE MVTG MRFC FUEL CELL HAS NO MEMBRANE, MVTG ELIMINTATED USING FORMIC ACID INSTEAD OF H2 GAS AS THE FUEL.
PEM systems that use reformed methanol were proposed, as in Daimler Chrysler Necar
5; reforming methanol, i.e. making it react to obtain hydrogen, is however a very complicated process, that requires also purification from the carbon monoxide the reaction produces. A platinum-ruthenium catalyst is necessary as some carbon monoxide will unavoidably reach the membrane. The level should not exceed 10 parts per million.
Furthermore, the start-up times of such a reformer reactor are of about half an hour. Alternatively, methanol, and some other biofuels can be fed to a PEM fuel cell directly without being reformed, thus making a direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC). These devices operate with limited success.
BALLARD IS ALSO USING THE METHANOL PEM FUEL CELL WITH THE REFORMER MENTIONED ABOVE.
The most commonly used membrane is Nafion by DuPont, which relies on liquid water humidification of the membrane to transport protons. This implies that it is not feasible to use temperatures above 80 to 90 °C, since the membrane would dry. Other, more recent membrane types, based on polybenzimidazole (PBI) or phosphoric acid, can reach up to 220 °C without using any water management: higher temperature allow for better efficiencies, power densities, ease of cooling (because of larger allowable temperature differences), reduced sensitivity to carbon monoxide poisoning and better controlability (because of absence of water management issues in the membrane); however, these recent types are not as common.[4]
One of the books I mentioned, CRC Press, Fuel Technology Handbook, pg 4-14, Edited by Gregor Hoodges, says that the Membrane material cost of a PEM fuel cell, is one of the things that killed the automotive fuel cell vehicle projects. That cost for one square meter of the membrane is $500 to $1000/square meter, and the cost of the membrane alone for a fuel cell for one car exceeded the DOE estimated cost that needed to be reached for an entire car fuel cell power plant by the automotive industry to be able to build cost effective fuel cell cars.
THE MVTG MRFC, Mixed Reactant Fuel Cell eliminated the PEM Membrane entirely!!!!!
