Honeywell (NYSE: HON) has acquired assets from privately held Ballard Unmanned Systems, a wholly owned subsidiary of Southborough, Mass.-based Ballard Power Systems Inc. Ballard Unmanned Systems designs and produces industry-leading, stored-hydrogen proton exchange membrane fuel cell systems that power unmanned aerial systems (UAS), particularly those used for energy inspection, cargo delivery, and other commercial and defense applications where demand for UAS services is growing.
Honeywell is acquiring the key intellectual property, inventory and equipment of Ballard Unmanned Systems. Ballard’s team of fuel-cell experts will also join Honeywell as part of the acquisition.
“Adding Ballard Unmanned Systems to the Honeywell family is another example of our commitment to invest in the growing UAS segment,” said Mike Madsen, president and chief executive officer, Honeywell Aerospace. “We can now begin producing top-quality, scalable power systems for our UAS customers and eventually adapt these systems for other future aerospace, defense and adjacent segment applications.”
Fuel cells function much like traditional batteries but with a key difference: They don’t run out of power or need to be recharged. A fuel cell uses the chemical energy of hydrogen or another fuel to cleanly and efficiently produce electricity. Unmanned aerial systems powered by fuel cells can fly longer distances, are quiet and have zero greenhouse gas emissions.
Ballard Unmanned Systems’ fuel cell power systems can run up to three times longer than batteries and are five times more reliable than small engines. Furthermore, unlike traditional gas engines that have carbon emissions, they utilize hydrogen, a clean source of energy.
With the added capabilities of Ballard Unmanned Systems, Honeywell intends to introduce a family of fuel cell power systems for a variety of UAS vehicles. Honeywell will also collaborate with Ballard Power Systems on broader aviation applications.
Honeywell offers certification expertise as well as a full line of avionics, propulsion and operational systems for unmanned aircraft and UAM vehicles. In June, the company launched a business dedicated to UAS and Urban Air Mobility. Additionally, in September Honeywell opened a new research and development lab to demonstrate the company’s technological capabilities in both hardware and software for the UAS and UAM markets.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed, and there is no change to Honeywell’s third-quarter 2020 outlook as a result of the acquisition.
urope-based global major aerospace group Airbus announced on Thursday that it had entered into a strategic partnership with German hydrogen fuel cell developer and manufacturer ElringKlinger. This was part of Airbus’ zero-carbon emission aviation initiative. ElringKlinger has been active in the design and manufacture of fuel cell technology for some 20 years and supplies both complete systems and components.
ElringKlinger fuel cells employ proton-exchange membrane (PEM) technology. In fuel cells, energy is generated through an electrochemical reaction. A PEM fuel cell has an anode and a cathode, separated by a porous electrolyte membrane. Hydrogen is the fuel for the reaction. It is introduced into the fuel cell through the anode, and then the hydrogen atoms react with a catalyst (in PEM fuel cells, almost always platinum) and split into their component protons (positively-charged) and electrons (negatively-charged). Meanwhile, on the other side of the fuel cell, oxygen (extracted from the air) enters the fuel cell by way of the cathode. While the protons pass through the membrane to the cathode (where they combine with the oxygen to form water, which is the waste product created by the fuel cell), the electrons flow out of the fuel cell and generate an electric current.
Fuel cells can run as long as they are supplied with hydrogen. Fuel cells can be deployed individually for small-scale applications, or ‘stacked’ together for larger-scale applications. As fuel cells have no moving parts, they are very reliable and noiseless.
“This partnership will contribute to growing our in-house expertise in alternative propulsion systems,” highlighted Airbus VP: zero-emission aircraft Glenn Llewellyn. “Today, Airbus has significant knowledge in electric propulsion and fuel cells thanks to our work carried out at our E-Aircraft System House and currently taking place at the ZAL [Centre for Applied Aeronautical Research, Hamburg, Germany]. This partnership will be a phenomenal acceleration in bringing hydrogen fuel cells to future aircraft.”
“The fact that Airbus opted in favour of ElringKlinger as a technology partner points to the performance capabilities of our fuel cell technology,” affirmed ElringKlinger CEO Dr Stefan Wolf. “In the aviation industry, in particular, the power density of [fuel cell] stacks is of primary importance. At the same time, other high-tech performance criteria such as service life or operational parameters such as operating temperatures or operating humidity must be met in an aviation-specific manner.”
ElringKlinger will provide the new partnership with fuel cell technology as well as certain components but will hold only a minority share in it. Control will be vested in Airbus. ElringKlinger will receive “compensation in the low to mid double-digit million euro range,” said the company in its statement. The two companies have agreed to divulge no further details about their partnership.
Denyo, a manufacturer of mobile generators, will work with Toyota to start verification tests with the aim of commercialising the truck
The project has been selected by Japan’s Ministry of the Environment as a low-carbon technology research and development programme.
Together, the two companies are investigating the possibility of electrified vehicles to act as large-scale power suppliers, delivering electricity when and where needed in a range of scenarios, including disaster-stricken areas without power, as well as entertainment venues such as outdoor concerts.
Many of the current generation of power-supply vehicles use diesel engines to provide power to the vehicles on the road and when generating electricity, which leads to the production of greenhouse gas emissions.
Fuel-cell power-supply vehicles, on the other hand, use zero-emission hydrogen fuel-cells to provide power.
These fuel cells allow for up to 72 hours of continuous power supply, while also providing water for showers as a by-product of power generation.
The Toyota/Denyo fuel-cell power-supply vehicle is based on Toyota’s Dyna light-duty truck and uses the fuel-cell system from Toyota’s Mirai fuel-cell electric car as its power source.
For its power supply unit, it uses fuel-cell power supply equipment developed by Denyo, under a programme subsidised by Japan’s Ministry of the Environment.
The test vehicle carries about 65 kg of hydrogen (in 27 hydrogen tanks), which allows for travelling long distances and generating power for long periods of time.
Verification tests for the vehicle started in September.
The truck will be compared against conventional engine-based powergenerators to verify the potential benefits of fuel-cell power-supply vehicles.
The lab has announced that it is participating in three newly announced H2 projects.
The Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has announced its participation in three new hydrogen fuel cell technology projects.
These projects are designed to help bring hydrogen fuel cell tech to a new level.
The Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory is participating in these three new projects following Department of Energy funding. The DOE has committed $112 million for the three projects over the next five years. This is one component of a massive broader effort for the advancement of clean technology, as well as the improvement of fuel cell durability, lifetime and efficiency.
One of the three projects in which the lab is participating is the Million Mile Fuel Cell Truck Consortium. The lab will be co-leading that project and will also co-lead the HydroGEN 2.0 project and H2NEW.
The Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory aims to advance fuel cell technology.
“At Berkeley Lab we are focused on renewable energy conversion technologies such as hydrogen; it’s complex and significant research that involves several of our scientific divisions and user facilities,” said Horst Simon, the deputy director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
“People have said the 2020s will be the decade of hydrogen. Worldwide you’re seeing an uptick, and it’s really taking off,” added lab scientist Adam Weber. “These multi-lab consortia are effective vehicles to get people working together toward a common vision and really move the needle on the technology.”
The Department of Energy has been announcing huge investments into new H2 projects. This summer, it revealed that it would be investing the more than $100 million total into two new consortia led by the DEO National Laboratory. The funds are to be used on projects that will advance hydrogen fuel cell technology research and development (R&D).
Since this announcement, various projects have been awarded their portion of the funds and their goals in using the DOE funding for moving the H2 technology forward. The Lab’s projects are focused on an area of hydrogen fuel cell technology that is expected to see considerable growth in coming years. H2 truck and heavy-duty vehicle uses are viewed as having considerable potential.
Electric cars which can be filled up within five minutes, reach ranges like a diesel and yet drive "cleanly": This is already being achieved by hydrogen fuel cell vehicles today. However, so far they are still rare and expensive. Apart from efficiency problems, this is due, among other things, to one core component: Gold-coated bipolar plates (BiP) in fuel cells are expensive and complex to manufacture. The Fraunhofer Institute for Material and Beam Technology IWS Dresden, the German automotive group Daimler and the Finnish steel company Outokumpu Nirosta have now developed an economical alternative for rapid mass production.
The Daimler bipolar plate (above) is coated with a carbon layer (below), reducing contact resistance and simultaneously increasing corrosion resistance.
The approximately 50 to 100 micrometer thin steel sheets are coated with a graphite-like layer just a few nanometers thick.
To this end, scientists at the Fraunhofer IWS have developed a technology that facilitates the continuous production of bipolar plates. Instead of gold, they coat the bipolar plates with a very thin carbon coating. This concept is well suited for mass production and can significantly reduce manufacturing costs. In addition, it contributes to the development of environmentally friendly vehicles.
Fuel cells are promising technological alternatives to battery concepts
„If the automotive industry is talking about alternative drive concepts today, it usually means battery electric driving", explains IWS Director Prof. Christoph Leyens. "Fuel cells, however, could offer an attractive technological solution for application scenarios such as trucks requiring a long range. We therefore work closely together with our industrial partners in order to enable more cost-effective and efficient fuel cells".
"Engineers are idealists, too, and so we are particularly passionate about this project," emphasizes Dr. Teja Roch, scientist at the IWS. "We are delivering a cornerstone for climate-neutral mobility beyond classic combustion engines. However, the project will only work if the new process is profitable in practice. "Our technology offers the potential to significantly reduce the production costs of fuel cells."
A fuel cell - how does it work?
Fuel cells operate like mini power plants: They are supplied with hydrogen and oxygen and use them to generate water, electricity and heat in a chemical reaction. Various designs can be considered. A widely used model is the PEM fuel cell. PEM fuel cells contain stacks consisting of many individual cells, each with a proton exchange membrane (PEM) in the middle. To the right and left of this membrane there are electrodes with catalysts, a gas diffusion layer (GDL) and bipolar plates on both sides. Hydrogen and oxygen flow through these plates into the cell. The plates consist of two stainless steel half plates each, on which special structures for gas flow and heat dissipation are embossed in a forming process and subsequently welded together.
However, since steel surfaces only poorly conduct electricity, bipolar plates are often coated with gold to prevent rust formation. Above all, however, the precious metal ensures that the current can easily flow, meaning that the contact resistance between the gas diffusion layer and the bipolar plate remains low. "However, gold is known to be expensive," says Teja Roch, outlining a problem with this frequently used solution. "In addition, the stainless steel plates for the plates are first formed and welded together and subsequently coated in stacks. This is a rather costly and time-consuming process."
Therefore, IWS researchers and their partners from the automotive and steel industry have explored new paths in the course of the joint project "miniBIP II" funded by the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology. Instead of using gold, they have coated the approximately 50 to 100 micrometers (thousandths of a millimeter) thin steel sheets with a graphite-like layer only a few nanometers (millionths of a millimeter) thick. They use physical vapor deposition (PVD) for this process. In this technology, an electric arc in a vacuum chamber first vaporizes the carbon, which is subsequently deposited on the stainless steel in a highly pure, uniform and very thin layer.
Coating costs reduced by half
Even in the pre-series stage, this carbon layer achieves a contact resistance similar to the gold coating. In other words, if the engineers further improve their process up to mass production, the coating will conduct electricity at least as well as the precious metal, possibly even better - at half the cost of coating. Fraunhofer IWS scientists are convinced that this will contribute to a new generation of more efficient fuel cells with higher electrical yield.
In addition, the innovative Fraunhofer technology also promises a higher production speed. The carbon layer is so extremely thin that the coating process itself takes only a few seconds. In addition, stack producers will in future be able to coat entire sheet metal rolls "non-stop" before forming. After all, the Fraunhofer coating is so durable that it can withstand the forming and welding process. "This enables a continuous manufacturing process and thus a much higher production throughput than ever before," explains Dr. Roch.
Fuel cell vehicles with the range of a diesel
Such improved and lower-cost fuel cells are particularly important for mobile use. They are particularly suitable for environmentally friendly cars, buses and long-range trucks that need to be refueled quickly. The "miniBIP II" project thus contributes to the Federal Government's recently reaffirmed strategy of making Germany a pioneer of future hydrogen technologies. Some market analysts such as IDTechEx and McKinsey expect that by 2030 several million vehicles with fuel cell technology will already be on the road worldwide. The Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft has taken up this challenge. In a joint initiative, the involved institutes are providing their "expertise to support the hydrogen age". Fraunhofer IWS participates in this network as well. Further information can be found online here:
