Advent Technologies Holdings announced that an article co-authored by a group including Dr. Emory De Castro, Advent Technologies’ Chief Technology Officer, has been published in Joule. The article presents the group’s perspective on near-, mid-, and long-term targets for proton conductors of heavy-duty fuel cells.

In addition to De Castro, the article was led by Craig S. Gittleman, Global Fuel Cell Business at General Motors, and included Hongfei Jia, Material Research Department at Toyota Research Institute of North America, Calum Chisholm, SAFCell, and Yu Seung Kim, Research Scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Fuel cells utilize the chemical energy of liquid or gaseous fuels to generate electricity. As fuel cells extend their territory to include heavy-duty vehicles, new demands for proton conductors, a critical component of fuel cells, have emerged. A near-term need is ensuring the chemical and mechanical stability of proton exchange membranes to enable long lifetime vehicles. In the mid-term, achieving stable conductivity of proton conductors under hot (>100°C) and dynamic fuel cell operating conditions is desirable. In the long term, targeting high thermal stability and tolerance to water enables the utilization of high energy density liquid fuels that will increase payload space for heavy-duty vehicles.

“We are thrilled that our article was approved for submission in Joule. The article highlights the need for Advent’s fuel cell technology due to our high-temperature proton exchange membrane (“HT-PEM”) fuel cells that leads to fulfilling our flexible ‘Any Fuel. Anywhere.’ option. Through the adoption of liquid fuel hydrogen carriers, Advent’s technology will bridge the gap in the timeline for developing a hydrogen infrastructure while offering fast fueling, increased payload space and adequate fuel storage for long-range applications in the automotive, maritime, aviation and power generation sectors.”
De Castro.