United Technologies Corporation Fuel Cells

Stonehart Associates Inc. 17 Cottage Read, Madison, Connecticut 06443-1220 U.S.A. and UTC (United Technologies Corporation) Fuel Cells,... 

United Technologies Corporation Fuel Cells (UTCFC) has developed and applied a new and novel in-situ electrochemical technique to quantify hydrogen crossover in membranes. 

The first commercial stationary fuel cell was introduced in the early 1990s by United Technologies Corporation. Since fuel cells have no moving parts, they hold the promise of high reliability, and since power outages had caused countless business disruptions in the late 1990s, the product seemed like a sure winner. 

Fuel cells have been reliably providing electricity to spacecraft since the 1960s, including the Gemini and Apollo missions as well as the space shuttle. The leading manufacturer of fuel cells for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (nasa), United Technologies Corporation, has sold commercial units for stationary power since the early 1990s, with more than 200 units in service. 

Other workers gradually went to less concentrated alkali (30-40% KOH) than found in Bacon s and P W s batteries. For the space shuttle program, United Technology Corporation (UTC-Power) developed a battery of alkaline fuel cells where 35% KOH immobilized in an asbestos matrix was used as the electrolyte. The electrodes contained a relatively large amount of platinum catalysts, so that at a temperature of 250°C it was possible to work at very high current densities, of up to 1 A/cm. ... 

The RBJ Health Center is headquarters for the public health and community care components of the Austin/Travis County Health and Human Services Department. Austin Energy, which is Austin s community-owned utility, plans to open the installation to the public as a demonstration facility and provide tours and educational programs. The fuel ceU is a PC25 system manufactured by UTC Fuel Cells, a unit of United Technologies Corporation." ... 

Insufficient supply of technicians. It was pointed out by a DACUM participant that there were only about 10 people outside of United Technologies Corporation that could service its PC25 fuel cell, which is one of the most widely-used cells in operation. He indicated that, if there were a rapid increase in demand for fuel cells in the near future, the number of qualified technicians to service the cells would be woefully inadequate. 

Rick Wallace (United Technologies Corporation) provided information on the economics of fuel cells, especially those installed under DoD programs. 

In early 1960s, some of the metal carbides such as silicone carbide (SiC) and boron carbide (BC) were tested for the first time in fuel cell environment. For example, BC was used as catalyst support in both phosphoric and alkaline fuel cells by GE in the USA [18]. Since then, it took 20 years for other carbides to be evaluated in fuel cells, in particular phosphoric acid fuel cell (PAFC). United Technologies Corporation... 

United Technologies Corporation has also built the very large (4.8 MW) demonstration PAFC units in Manhattan and Tokyo for the electricity utilities. These are designed for peak generation near the load centers so as to smooth the demand on the transmission and distribution systems. Base load generation by means of fuel cells appears to be well in the future as the cost targets are such that only advanced, high temperature fuel cells are likely to be economic and these have severe developmental problems of a materials science nature yet to be solved. 

Development History Phosphoric acid fuel cells were developed from the 1970s through the 1990s by several companies in the United States, including ONSI, a division of International Fuel Cells (IFC), which eventually became United Technologies Corporation... 

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