N.R.E.L. tests methanol fuel cell technology   

By Katrice R. Jalbuena

March 1, 2011

The United States Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory, the department’s primary national laboratory for renewable energy and energy efficiency research and development, is collaborating with a California-based fuel cell company to validate methanol fuel cell technology.

 The lab is working with Oorja Protonics of Fremont, California on a two-year project worth just over $2 million to deploy and demonstrate methanol fuel cells for power pallet jacks - a kind of forklift - in four commercial wholesale distribution centers.

“The deployment project offers a significant opportunity to increase the number of commercially available direct methanol fuel cell systems, expand practical user operating experiences, and validate the performance of the systems using real-world data,” said N.R.E.L. project manager Todd Ramsden.

During the course of the project, 75 direct methanol fuel cell power packs will provide power to Class III material handling lifts at warehouses operated by Unified Grocers (Stockton, California and Commerce, California), Earp Distribution (Kansas City, Kansas), and Testa Produce (Chicago).

A fuel cell is an electrochemical device that generates electricity by converting the chemical energy stored in fuel to electrical or thermal energy. Instead of burning the fuel, such as a combustion engine does, it is an electrochemical reaction that generates the power.

Unlike combustions engines, which have harmful emissions in the form of greenhouse gases and emissions, a fuel cell’s electrochemical reaction only results in water and heat. In the direct methanol fuel cells to be tested by N.R.E.L. and Oorja, the fuel is bio-methanol.

Bio-methanol is a renewable, organically-derived fuel made from crude glycerin which is a byproduct of vegetable oil and animal fat processing.

Aside from the lower carbon footprint, fuel cell-powered lifts would offer longer runtimes and increased autonomy compared to traditional battery-powered lifts. While a battery-powered lift will eventually run out of charge and require removal and disposal, a fuel cell-powered one would merely require replenishment of fuel.

By operating on renewable methanol delivered to warehouse sites, the fuel cell-powered lifts are expected to reduce net carbon dioxide emissions by one million pounds over the course of the project.

N.R.E.L. will be contributing $900,000 to fund the project while Oorja will provide $1.2 million. The lab will collect and analyze it from the project and will provide a third-party assessment of their performance.

The lab expects the data from this project to help industry understand the business case for using methanol-fueled fuel cells in material handling applications.

Source: EcoSeed