COE Research Groups
Make Major Contributions
to Fuel Cell Technology

The University of Delaware is rapidly developing a reputation for its work in the area of clean energy.  In the College of Engineering, research and demonstration projects on various aspects of fuel cell technology have received substantial financial support and garnered significant public attention during the past few months.

The following summarizes three major projects, with web links to detailed stories on each one:

• 
  Jingguang Chen, Professor of Chemical Engineering and Director of the Center for Catalytic Science and Technology, and Brian Willis, Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering, are part of a research team that has been awarded a $4.6 million research grant by the U.S. Department of Energy to find ways in which hydrogen fuel cells can be made less costly and more stable by seeking alternatives to the materials currently used in cathode electrocatalysts. Read more...


• 
  Professor Michael Santare and Assistant Professor Anette Karlsson of the Department of Mechanical Engineering are collaborating with Nuvera Fuel Cells Inc. of Cambridge, Massachusetts, to make polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells commercially viable for transportation applications.  The team has won a $5 million U.S. Department of Energy grant for this work, with the UD effort focused on durability. Read more...
  
• 
  A multidisciplinary team coordinated by the Delaware Center for Transportation (DCT) in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering is conducting a fuel-cell bus demonstration project supported by a $1.7 million grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Transit Administration, matched by private financing from companies working in partnership with the University.  The team is led by Ajay Prasad, Professor of Mechanical Engineering; co-investigators on the project are Ardeshir Faghri, Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Director of DCT, and Suresh Advani, George W. Laird Professor of Mechanical Engineering. Read more...

“Engineering is all about reducing science to practice,” says Dean Eric Kaler.  “All three of these projects are contributing to that process so that usable products can be created.  Engineering is also about teamwork, and partnerships have been critical to the developments made by all of our research groups working on the development of fuel cell technology and demonstrating its value to the public.”

by Diane Kukich