Nov 25 2010
SiEnergy Systems LLC, a Harvard spin-off company commercializing a novel solid oxide fuel cell using nanometer scale oxide thin films, is pleased to announce that Principal Scientist, Masaru Tsuchiya, will be presenting at the Materials Research Society’s (MRS) 2010 Fall meeting to be held next week in Boston, MA.
Dr. Tsuchiya will discuss SiEnergy’s recent breakthrough in nanometric thin film micro-solid oxide fuel cells on Thursday December 2nd within the Symposium on Next-Generation Fuel Cells.
SiEnergy Systems recently made a breakthrough in scaling power output of ultra-thin film low temperature micro-solid oxide fuel cells. The patent-pending technology utilizes micro-fabricated robust grids for scaling up the active area to arbitrary dimensions depending on total power needed. The new structure allows ultra-thin fuel cell membranes to span a distance that is 100,000 times its thickness while maintaining mechanical stability and high power output.
“One of the key challenges for commercialization of silicon based micro solid fuel cells has been the scaling of the power generating membrane active area while retaining high power density” says Dr. Tsuchiya. “We overcame this challenge with careful control of thin film process parameters, and novel device architectures. The fabrication process is robust with the yield over 90%, easily transferable to a MEMS foundry.”
According to Dr. Shriram Ramanathan, a founder of SiEnergy Systems and Associate Professor of Materials Science at Harvard University, “We are thrilled with this breakthrough. We believe this is a major step forward in practical realization of nanostructured solid oxide fuel cells.”
With the rapid growth in power consumption in portable electronic devices in recent years, fuel cells have gained interest as mobile power sources. Fuel cells provide higher total energy for a given size or weight than batteries and can be replenished instantaneously. SiEnergy’s approach to integrate solid oxide fuel cells directly onto silicon platform could revolutionize the way people use mobile power devices.
SiEnergy is seeking investors and industrial collaborators to develop fuel cell stacks to target high end commercial and military mobile power applications.
Source: http://www.alliedminds.com/