The cell part of the fuel cell takes a honeycomb structure. The structure enlarges a reaction area where oxygen reacts with hydrogen.
A unique technology to uniformize temperature distribution over the cell is also used. Use of this technology successfully makes the fuel cell hard to be broken even when the fuel cell is quickly started.

Start-up time of SOFC = 5 minutes
(1.5 hours in conventional SOFCs)
The output density of SOFC = 28 watts per one liter of the module volume
(6 watts in conventional SOFCs)

Size of 100 watts SOFC generator:
30 high x 25 wide x 18 deep (unit = cm)
The SOFC generator having this size is portable in handling.

Current technological problems - to reduce the cost of the fuel cell by using cheap metal for the current collector.
Technological problems after 2009 - to improve durability and impact resistance of the fuel cell and to further improve the efficiency and to reduce the size of the controller.

Applications of currently developing SOFC are:
Power sources in leisure and disaster sites and auxiliary power sources for electric vehicles

The technology article first presented in this year is "Succeeded in Synthesizing a Crystal Organic-Inorganic Nano-Hybrid Film".
My plan was to upload the article to the site on December 30 last year.
Sorry for the delay of uploading the article.

As known, the platinum currently used for the electrode catalyst of the fuel cell has limits (limited resource and expensive) in its use. Some technical solution to this is required urgently.
I thought that the success of synthesizing the nano-hybrid thin film is very significant in this sense, and translated the details of the technology news into English.

Keywords:
Organic molecules, non-organic molecules, rubeanic acid copper, proton conductivity, fuel-cell electrode catalyst, amorphous material, crystal organic-inorganic nano-hybrid film, nano-hybrid thin film synthesizing technology, electrode catalyst, coordination polymers, rubeanic acid copper, rubeanic acid copper thin film, crystal nano-film, crystal complex film, organic ligands, dithiooxamidato ligands, super-flat surface, bottom-up process, sapphire substrate, metal ions, surface x-ray diffraction method, atomic arrangement, high brilliance radiation, Spring-8, ligand symmetry, substrate surface smoothness, amorphous material,  ion conductivity

Introduction
A nano-hybrid thin film of crystal porous coordination polymer having a laminated layer structure of organic molecules and non-organic molecules in the order of atom layer has been successfully synthesized.
It is said that the nano-hybrid thin film is a promising thin film material for the fuel-cell electrode catalyst.

Co-developed by:
* Dr. Hiroshi Kitagawa, Dr. Katsuhiko Kaneizuka (Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Sciences, Kyushu University)
* Researchers Dr. Osami Sakata and Dr. Rie Aoki (JASRI)
* Dr. Mamoru Yoshimoto (Interdisciplinary Graduate School of Science and Engineering, Tokyo Institute of Technology)

It has been considered that a complex called "a rubeanic acid copper", listed as one of the ion conduction materials, has high proton conductivity, and will possibly serve as the fuel-cell electrode catalyst. The rubeanic acid copper is generally an amorphous material. Because of being amorphous, i.e., non-uniform structure, it is not suitable for the making devices. The lab. team synthesized a crystal organic-inorganic nano-hybrid film by a bottom-up process, which was created by the lab. team. A rubeanic acid copper and copper ions were used for synthesizing the film. The nano-hybrid film was investigated by using high brilliance synchrotron radiation (surface/interface structure analysis beam line BL13XU) of SPring-8, large radiation facility. The surface x-ray diffraction method was used for the measurement.
From the investigation results, it was confirmed that in the interlayer and intra-layer, the complexes are periodically arrayed in the order of atom layer, viz., the crystal film was formed.
The nano-hybrid thin film synthesizing technology will be applied to the making of devices such as organic electroluminescence elements and transistors, in addition to the fuel cell catalyst. The technology must have been published on "Journal of the American Chemical Society", issued on November 26, 2008.

Background
To form the fuel cell and the electrode catalyst, it is essential to develop a material having high ion conductivity.
Bear this in mind, the researchers have synthesized various coordination polymers and measured the ion conductivities of the polymers.
Through the measurement, it was found that rubeanic acid copper exhibits an extremely high ion conductivity. The researchers felt the possibility of realizing a device having high ion conductivity by sandwiching the rubeanic acid copper between the electrodes.

The amorphous material has been used for the fuel cell. A crystal material, if it could be used in place of the amorphous material, will give rise to the following advantages of decrease of the defective percentage of the resultant products and increase of ion conductivity.

A lab team has succeeded in forming a bulk crystal of the rubeanic acid copper. The structure of the crystal is unstable, however. Because of the unstable structure, its crystal has been insufficiently evaluated.

Many researchers have competitively tried to form the rubeanic acid copper thin film having a uniform structure in the inorganic chemical field in the world.
Howevr. no one has succeeded in forming the thin film of the rubeanic acid copper, so far as we know. It figures that concurrently forming of a number of crystal structures would cause low crystallinity of the formed thin film.

Experiments
Fig. 1:
To control the reactivity of copper ions with rubeanic acid as organic ligands, a try was made to laminate copper ions and rubeanic acid on the substrate interface in paired fashion, as shown in Fig. 1.
Specifically, rubeanic acid and copper were laminated on a super-flat sapphire substrate surface to form a pair of layers, and the same process was cyclically repeated to form successive paired layers, as blocks are built up (This film forming process will be referred to as a "bottom-up process".). As a result, an organic-inorganic nano-hybrid film was formed.
More specifically, a sapphire substrate having been pre-processed (modified with binder) was immersed in an aqueous solution of metal ions to fix the metal ions to the substrate. Then, the resultant was immersed in an ethanol solution of organic ligands to fix the ligands to the metal ions.
In this way, one cycle layer (rubeanic acid copper thin film having a uniform structure) was formed.
It is noted here that a thickness of the nano-thin film can be controlled by selecting the number of the film forming processes cyclically performed, and that this thin film forming process, or the bottom-up process, is very simple.
It is further noted that the bottom-up process is advantageous in that it uniformly forms the thin film over a large area, and is environment-friendly with no need of the vacuum and heat treatments. The bottom-up process comes in the category of the solution process.

Fig. 2:
Thin films of single-layer (a), bi-layers (b) and tri-layer (c) were formed.
The transmission electron spectra of those films were measured.
In each cycle layer of each layer, a fixed amount of rubeanic acid copper was fixed. This was confirmed through a measurement result that the absorbance peak increased with increase of the film thickness (see Fig. 2).

The absorption intensity is approximately proportional to the film thickness.
In Fig. 2, increased absorption intensities appear in a wavelength region from 300 to 900 nm, and from the figure it is seen that the nano-film grows as the number of cycles increases. No information about an arrangement of atoms in each cycle layer was gathered. A measurement was made to check the atomic arrangements of the films. In the measurement, the X-ray source of the laboratory was used and the diffraction method was employed. The measurement failed to present the structural information.

There would be two reasons for that the measurement failed to provide the structural information. Firstly, the thickness of the test pieces is very thin, less than 10 nm. Secondly, the diffraction intensity of the thin films is weak, unlike the semiconductor thin film of which the crystallinity is considerably high and the film forming process is matured.

To cope with this, the surface x-ray diffraction method using the high brilliance radiation in Spring-8 was used to invest the atomic arrangement of the thin film. Diffraction intensities of the x-rays diffracted in the thin films were successfully measured with well satisfaction, by the method.

Fig. 3:
Three thin films of rubeanic acids having different ligands were formed by the bottom-up method. Each thin film consists of 11 cycle layers.
The rubeanic acids were:
1) rubeanic acid (symmetric molecule, Fig. 3-1)
2) pi-extended rubeanic acid (Fig. 3-2)
3) ethanol rubeanic acid (asymmetric molecule, Fig. 3-3)

Fig. 4:
In the nano-films of the rubeanic acid and the pi-extended rubeanic acid, diffraction peaks were observed in both the out-of-plane measurement (Fig. 4-1) and the in-plane measurement (Fig. 4-2). Presence of the diffraction peaks indicates that the rubeanic acid copper nano-film has a crystal structure.

In the case of the nano-film of the ethanol rubeanic acid, diffraction peaks were observed in the out-of-plane measurement. From this, it was confirmed that the nano-film grew with increase of the number of cycles. No diffraction peak was observed in the in-plane measurement of the nano-film. This indicates that the arrangement of atoms of the rubeanic acid copper was not formed in the nano-film.

From the study, it was taught that the ligand symmetry and the smoothness of the substrate are essentially taken into accoutn when the crystal coordination polymer material is formed on the substrate.

Specifically, at least two conditions to form a crystal nano-film were derived from the study. The first condition is to use the symmetrical molecule. Three molecules, including symmetrical and asymmetrical molecules, were experimented. In the case of using the symmetrical molecule, atoms were distinctly arranged within the plane. In the asymmetrical molecule, no atoms were arranged. The second condition was to use a substrate which is flat in atomic levels. A nano-film having a 3-dimensional atom arrangement was formed only when the super-flat sapphire substrate was used.

Bottom-Up Method
A typical process having been used to crystallize the material that is amorphous in bulk state, is the heat treatment. The heat treatment is unable to crystallize such a material that is unstable, for example, decomposable by heating, however.
The bottom-up method developed this time successfully crystallized the rubeanic acid copper, which has been considered to be difficult to crystallize.

The success of the crystallization implies that a functional material, which has been considered to be impossible to crystallize, can be crystallized by the bottom-up method.
The bottom-up method as the synthesizing method comes in the category of the solution method. This method is advantageous in that it uniformly forms the thin film over a large area, and it is environment-friendly with no need of using the vacuum treatment and the heat treatment.
In this sense, the bottom-up method will be applied to electroluminescence element, transistors and the like, in addition to the fuel cells.

The source, written in Japanese, is linked at:
http://www.kyushu-u.ac.jp/pressrelease/2008/2008-11-26.pdf
http://www.spring8.or.jp/ja/current_result/press_release/2008/081126

#: For Figs. 1 to 4, reference is made to FuelCell japan

The new catalyst material is a carbon material, shaped like a spherical shell, which is formed by adding iron or cobalt to a polymer to be carbonized. The material is termed a "carbon shell" by Prof. Ozaki who discovered the material.
A fine structure of carbon atoms has a catalyst function.
If it is doped with boron or nitrogen, the catalyst performance is further improved
(THE NIKKAN KOGYO SHIMBUN, LTD.).
The platinum-substitution catalyst of Dr. Ozaki is famous, but its mechanism was unclear. Dr. Ozaki successfully elucidated its catalyst mechanism this time. It is sure that its mechanism elucidation will accelerate the development of his catalyst.

No one has visualized the concentration distribution of lithium (Li).
The peak of the spectrum of the concentration distribution of Li is low in energy level to such an extent that it is difficult to distinguish from the peaks of the spectra of the background and other elements. This is the reason why the visualization is difficult.
The spectrum-imaging method using the STEM - EELS method#2 has been used for visualizing the concentration distributions of elements constituting a test piece.

The researchers found the fact "The second order derivative of the EELS spectrum is theoretically proportional to the concentration of an element of a test piece when the test piece is thin." A signal intensity analyzing method based on the second order derivative was developed anew. The signal intensities of lithium were quantitized by using the new analysis method to visualize the concentration distribution.

Further, the researchers elucidated a relationship between the nano structure of the positive electrode and the behavior of lithium ions by using the new visualizing technique.

For details of the results of this study, reference is made to "Electrochemical and Solid-State Letters" (IEEE transactions), electronic edition, issued on August 15, 2008, and the sources of this article referred to below.

[Sources: AIST's press release on August 18, 2008, List of AIST's major study results, and others]

#1: Akita Tomoki, chief researcher,
Research Institute for Ubiquitous Energy Devices, AIST (national institute of advanced industrial science and technology)
#2: STEM = scan transmission electron microscope
EELS = electron energy loss spectroscopy
Keywords: lithium ion battery, anode electrode, visualize, incoming and outgoing motions of lithium ions, concentration distribution of lithium, STEM - EELS

The weight of the fuel cell charger developed this time is almost the half of that of the previous one.
The manufacturing cost of the fuel cell charger is almost equal to that of the currently used charger.
The weight of the fuel cell charger is 1/10 or lower of that of the alkaline dry cell, but is capable of supplying electric power equal to that of the alkaline dry cell.
The company has a plan to start shipping of samples of the new fuel cell chargers on April, 2009, and to really commercialize the chargers till April of 2010

The fuel cell charger receives hydrogen directly from a hydrogen generator cassette, which is attached to the fuel cell.
The hydrogen generator cassette, based on the Aquafairy's propriety technology, contains the metal hydrogen generating agent and water. Hydrogen is generated by adding water to the hydrogen generating agent.
A fuel cell, which uses Al (aluminum) particles and generates hydrogen through the reaction of Al with water, is being developed by Hitachi Maxell and Muroran Institute of Technology. The Hitachi Maxell exhibited the improved fuel cell of this type in CEATEC JAPAN 2008.

Fuel cell charger has the following specifications:
Output power - 3 watts
power generation capacity - 5 Wh
Weight - about 20 grams
Size - 55 mm deep x 40 mm wide x 9 mm high
Volume = 20 cm3

Sources: The Sankei Shimbun, Sankei Digital & THE NIKKAN KOGYO SHIMBUN,LTD, etc.

Keywords: Aquafairy, PEFC, fuel cell charger, mass production technology, metal hydrogen generating agent, water, cassette

The FClib is a first extension tool having the thermodynamics function in the products of The MathWorks. FClib is seamlessly integrated with the model base design (MBD) and the rapid prototype tool for control systems, which are both the products of US-based The MathWorks, Inc.
FClib was developed by German-based EUtech Scientific Engineering GmbH (Eutech).

CYBERNET SYSTEMS recently signed an agreement with Eutech to solely distribute the FClib products in Japan, and started the sale of FClib.
To learn more and exact information of FClib, visit at: http://www.cybernet.co.jp/matlab-thirdparty/product/FClib/

 Related links:
EUtech Scientific Engineering GmbH (Eutech)
The MathWorks, Inc.
CYBERNET SYSTEMS CO. LTD.

The Hokkaido Shimbun Press reports:
Hokkaido Gas Co., Ltd. (KitaGas) (Hokkaido-based big gas supplier) will also start the sale of residential fuel cell cogeneration systems in 2010.
The cogeneration system of KitaGas is designed for cold-region use and uses natural gas as the primary fuel. The company has developed the cogeneration system in cooperation with Panasonic and Ebara-Ballard. The test results are that the energy reduction percentage is about 20% and the CO2 reduction percentage is about 30%.

THE NIKKAN KOGYO SHIMBUN, LTD describes: A local propane gas distributor in Kyushu started a demonstration test of a residential energy supply system as a hybrid system of a residential fuel cell cogeneration system and a solar power generator. Through the demonstration test, research will be made about how to efficiently operate the fuel cell system in connection with the power generation condition of the solar system.

THE NIKKAN KOGYO SHIMBUN, LTD further reports: Nisshinbo Industries, Inc. will gradually expand the production facility for manufacturing fuel cell separators till 2015 in connection with an increasing variation of the selling amount of the residential fuel cell systems. A total of about 6,000,000,000 yen (x 1/about 100 = USD) will be put in the building of the production facility.
The factory will start the production of separators corresponding in number to 20,000 FC units/year to 300,000 FC units and produce the separators corresponding in number to 300,000 FC units/year in 2015.
The company has the largest shipment of the separators for the residential fuel cell systems in Japan.

An additional report of THE NIKKAN KOGYO SHIMBUN, LTD is:
Panasonic has decided that the company does not commercialize the solar cells.
As for the energy business, the company's management resources will be concentrated on the residential fuel cell systems.
The company has a large number of solar cell patents, and has developed the composite solar cells for a long time. The solar cell development section will be left but not expanded.

As known, this fuel cell is superior to the fuel cell of the type using the reformer in many respects. When this type of the fuel cell is operated with use, carbon accumulatively deposits on the surface of the fuel electrode of the fuel cell, so that the fuel electrode gradually deteriorates in performance.
Dr. Ihara has succeeded this time in minimizing the deterioration of the fuel electrode, and in developing, based on this, a new fuel electrode which leads to the fuel cell having high output power and high durability.

Dr. Ihara has also succeeded in developing a called "rechargeable direct carbon fuel cell (RDCFC)". The RDCFC operates using the depositing solid carbon as the fuel. Accordingly, during the power generation operation, there is no need of supplying additional gas to the fuel cell.
Dr. Ihara has succeeded in increasing the output power of the fuel cell by controlling the equilibrium reaction at the fuel electrode. The output power density of the fuel cell was increased up to 0.26W/cm2. This figure is the highest in the world when it is considered as the figure representative of the output power of this type of the fuel cell. The RDCFC has a high possibility of reducing the size. In this respect, it is expected to use the RDCFC as the micro fuel cell.

Fuel Electrode Improvement:
A trace of proton conductor was added to the fuel electrode of the direct carbon fuel cell by using the infiltration process. More exactly, SrZr0.95Y0.05O3-alpha (SZY) was added to Ni/YSZ, and SrCe0.95Yb0.05 O3-alpha (CYB) was added to Ni/GDC.
The result is that the fuel electrode was highly activated, and the deterioration of the depositing carbon was minimized.

Source and references:
1) Press release from NEDO
2) "Development Of SOFC Directly Using Dry Hydrocarbon as Secondary Fuel, Based on Fuel Electrode Reaction Mechanism"
3) "New Technology Implementable into Micro Fuel Cell, Much Smaller Than Conventional One"

Keywords: fuel electrode, direct carbon fuel cell, dry hydrocarbon, solid oxide fuel cell, steam reforming process, reformer, proton conductor, infiltration process, solid carbon, rechargeable direct carbon fuel cell, output density, rechargeable direct carbon fuel cell, RDCFC.

>> To read "Rechargeable Direct Carbon Fuel Cell", visit FuelCell japan

Developed by: Yasunari Maekawa, Masaharu Asano, Shinka Chin, et al,
high conductivity polymer film material study group in Quantum-Beam Science Directorate, Japan Atomic Energy Agency

A power generation test was conducted. A fuel cell into which the new electrolyte membrane incorporated was operated in the condition of 80 degrees of centigrade. The test result is that the fuel cell continuously and stably operated for over 40,000 hours. These figures indicate the required values in the current residential fuel cell.
The conductivity of the electrolyte membrane was about 1.5 times (0.11 S/cm of the conductivity of the conventional electrolyte membrane (Naffion: trademark of DuPont),) and the membrane strength was about 2.3 times (80 MPa) of that of the Naffion membrane. The ion conductivity and the membrane strength of the aromatic hydrocarbon polymer electrolyte membrane were both remarkably improved. It has been considered that it is almost impossible to increase the property values of the electrolyte.
Further, it is noted that the membrane little deteriorated even in the low humidity conditions.
The result of this study has been presented in the 57th Polymer Material Forum, September 24 to 26, 2008.
Source: News Release from Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA)

Keywords:
Hydrocarbon polymer electrolyte membrane, aromatic hydrocarbon polymer electrolyte membrane, thermal/radiation two-stage graft polymerization, radiation graft polymerization, durability , high temperature, low humidity, fuel cell membrane property, power generation characteristic, membrane strength, residential fuel cell, polymer electrolyte membrane.