Intelligent Energy shows the ENV fuel-cell motorcycle prototype

"In the none-too distant future", commented Intelligent Energy CEO Harry Bradbury, "people will be able to use a bike like ENV to leave work in an urban environment, drive to the countryside, detach the CORE and attach it to another vehicle, such as a motorboat, before going on to power a log cabin with the very same fuel cell, which could then be re-charged from a mini hydrogen creator, the size of a shoebox."

"Intelligent Energy, with an expanding suite of technology platforms, is capable of producing every element of this scenario and is currently working on just such a hydrogen-creator, which will be able to produce hydrogen from future fuels such as bio-ethanol (derived from soya or sugar cane), offering consumers a tantalising vision of complete electrical self-sustainability."

This vision is particularly compelling for remote communities and especially for the developing world, where large grids are simply not economically viable and where fuel cells offer both easy portability and power delivery at the point of consumption with no loss of efficiency.

Fuel cell technology and the Intelligent Energy CORE

The Intelligent Energy CORE is a PEM-type fuel cell - one of five different fuel cell types, all of which have different attributes in terms of size, robustness and ability to work at high temperatures.

The PEM (or Proton Exchange Membrane) fuel cell type is the most popular and appropriate type of fuel cell for automotive applications. Simply put, each fuel cell is a multi-layered sandwich of plates and MEAs (Membrane Electrode Assemblies), in which the MEA acts as a catalyst during an electro-chemical reaction, producing water and Measure bar electricity from hydrogen and oxygen.

The water by-product points to the usefulness of the technology in heat and power applications, such as the home. The water by-product can be evaporated, drained or drunk, as it was, for example, by the astronauts of the Apollo missions. NASA were the first real users of fuel cell technology in the 1950s and 60s - a century after its first invention by Welsh lawyer Sir William Grove.

The Intelligent Energy CORE fuel cell is extremely efficient, both in terms of volumetric power density and low parasitic loss. It uses metal rather than the more common graphite plates, making it easier to manufacture, more robust and, crucially, smaller as metal plates can be made more thinly than graphite plates. This makes the CORE particularly attractive to the automotive industry, where space is always at a premium.

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