October 5, 2007
CTC finds uses for fuel cells
By Chad Mearns
Wednesday, October 3, 2007 12:36 PM EDT
 |
Susan Van Scoyoc, CTC’s Manager of Army Power and Energy Programs, shows off an aircraft towing vehicle outfitted with a fuel cell power supply in the early years of CTC’s Fuel Cell Testing and Evaluation Center. (Photo by Chad Mearns)
|
|
As a college senior at Bucknell University in 1993, Susan Van
Scoyoc had some lofty ambitions. Like many students in the early
90s, she was shocked to learn of
the toll industry had taken on the environment, and she wanted to help. She wanted, she recalls with
a smile, to save the world.
Fast forward thirteen years. It turns out that Van Scoyoc has actually made some rather decent progress on that goal.
Through her work as the Manager of Army Power and Energy Programs at Concurrent Technologies Corporation (CTC), Van Scoyoc has played an instrumental role in bringing clean and renewable alternative energy sources to the realm of practical applications.
“It’s definitely rewarding work,” said Van Scoyoc, a graduate of Forest Hills High School. “We’re not doing science for science’s sake. We’re putting these things to real use and helping to make these technologies more common.
Specifically, Van Scoyoc has been concentrating on fuel cell technology since CTC opened its Fuel Cell Testing and Evaluation Center (FCTec) in Richland Township in 1998.
“We don’t build fuel cells,” she explained. Instead, the FcTec determines how advanced energy technologies can be best integrated with commercial, industrial or military applications.
“We’re more third-party unbiased evaluators. We’re focused on finding advanced energy solutions for client needs,” she said. “Sometimes, it doesn’t work. It’s not that we failed. Our job was to see if it could operate in a certain rigorous environment.”
Since the program began, the FCTec’s projects have included adapting aircraft towing vehicles to run on power generated by fuel cells, providing a fuel cell-based backup power system to the Tobyhanna Army Depot near Scranton, powering and off-the-grid ranger station in Wyoming and equipping Hickam Air Force Base in Hawaii with fuel cell-powered busses, maintenance and towing vehicles and hydrogen refueling stations.
According to Dan Markiewicz, CTC’s Director of Advanced Energy Programs, fuel cells have the potential to provide cleaner, more efficient energy solutions if used in the right application.
“If you look at the history of fuel cells, they go back to the Apollo space mission. It’s getting it to be cost competitive and looking at the infrastructure,” said Markiewicz, a graduate of Conemaugh Valley High School and UPJ.
Fuel cells, he explained, generate power by stripping electrons from hydrogen molecules. While they can vary greatly in size, efficiency, operating temperature and power output, all fuel cells have one thing in common--they require hydrogen.
That hydrogen can come from a variety of sources, including water, biomass and fossil fuels.
“You actually can use a potato to make a fuel cell,” said Van Scoyoc. “But right now, the best source of hydrogen is natural gas. So if you still backtrack it, the ultimate source is still a fossil fuel...Another way to create hydrogen is to electrolyze water. You can turn water into hydrogen, run the hydrogen through a fuel cell and get water out. But, you still need that first source of power, and where is that coming from?“
Possible solutions, Van Scoyoc said, could include using excess power generated from renewable sources such as wind turbines to electrolyze water and store the resulting pure hydrogen for future use.
Recently, CTC has spawned other programs to explore the additional types of alternative energies beyond fuel cells.
“The work we’re doing here is on the cutting edge. I think when you compare some of the work being done here with larger cities, I think we’re right beside them.”
|
