Read the full story in Technology Review.

Fuel cells are the most efficient way to convert chemical energy into electricity. But most either operate at high temperatures or require very pure hydrogen fuel. Superprotonic, a startup company in Pasadena, CA, is developing a fuel cell that can handle dirty hydrogen at relatively low temperatures. It could thus use hydrogen produced from other fuels–such as natural gas or ethanol–by a simple device called a “reformer.”

Read the full story in Technology Review.

A new process increases the energy output of methanol fuel cells by 50 percent.

Read the full story in The Guardian.

A chemical found in mushrooms could one day replace the expensive and polluting heavy metals at the heart of fuel cells and conventional batteries, say chemists at Oxford University, boosting the development of clean power.

Read the full story at SustainableBusiness.com.

Commercializing fuel cells and shifting from gasoline to hydrogen could generate 675,000 new jobs over the next 25 years, according to a Department of Energy (DOE) study sent to Congress last week.

Read the full story in the Washington Business Journal.

Volkswagen Group of America Inc. is planning a coast-to-coast tour of its hydrogen fuel cell car, the HyMotion Tiguan.

Mapping a route from Portland, Maine, to Los Angeles, the Herndon-based car maker said the road show will wind through 31 cities to showcase a new environmentally friendly fuel that emits nothing more than water vapor.

Volkswagen is making the trek with more than two-dozen partnering organizations and companies, including other auto companies such as BMW, Honda and Nissan and entities like the National Hydrogen Association, Army and Environmental Protection Agency.

Read the press release.

Defense Logistics Agency kicked off its fuel cell forklift pilot project here July 24 at the Defense Depot Warner Robins. It is part of an effort to find alternative energy sources and reduce America’s growing dependence on energy imports.

Read the full story in Renewable Energy World.

As fuel cells enter the portable electronics market, they will create opportunities for other businesses. With such a broad array of portable electronics on the market, the solution is not necessarily one-size-fits-all.

Read the full post at Green Car Congress.

While hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (HFCVs) could alleviate US dependence on oil in transportation and significantly reduce US emissions of carbon dioxide, bringing the technology from its current state to market viability will require substantial time and additional investment, according to a new study by the National Research Council.

Read the full post at Biopact.

Researchers have combined the efforts of two kinds of bacteria to produce hydrogen in a bioreactor, with the product from one providing food for the other. According to an article [*.pdf] in the August issue of Microbiology Today, this technology has an added bonus: leftover enzymes can be used to scavenge precious metals from spent automotive catalysts to help make fuel cells that convert hydrogen into energy.

Read the full story in NIST Tech Beat.

Seeking to understand a new fuel cell material, a research team working at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), in collaboration with the University of Liverpool, has uncovered a novel structure that moves oxygen ions through the cell at substantially lower temperatures than previously thought possible. The finding announced this month in Nature Materials may be key to solving fuel cell reliability issues and lead to reduced operating costs in high-performance stationary fuel cells.

Read the full story at News.com.

Honda has begun the first commercial production ever of a hydrogen fuel cell-powered car.

The Japanese auto manufacturer ceremoniously launched production of its first hydrogen-powered vehicles on Sunday in Tochigi, Japan, and announced its first customers.

Read the full story at Environmental Leader.

Verizon’s call-switching center and office building in Garden City, N.Y., uses seven fuel cells, each of which is able to generate 200 kwh of electricity. The company has earned the EPA’s Energy Star Award for operating it, the nation’s largest fuel cell site of its kind.

Read the full story in Technology Review.

New research shows that formic acid could be used as a safe, easy-to-transport source of hydrogen for fuel cells. Matthias Beller and his colleagues at the Leibniz Institute of Catalysis, in Rostock, Germany, have found a way to convert formic acid, a common preservative and antibacterial agent, into hydrogen gas at low temperatures.

Read the full story at News.com.

The U.S. Department of Transportation issued a ruling today that will let passengers carry approved methanol fuel cells and up to two spare fuel cartridges in their carry-on bags.

Read the full post at Technology Review.

The world’s top automakers’ leaders finally woke up, looked around, and realized what many experts have been saying for years: hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles don’t make much sense. At the auto show in Geneva yesterday, Bob Lutz, GM’s vice chairman, the global-warming skeptic who is nevertheless leading the charge at GM in promoting cleaner vehicles, seems to have come close to conceding that the company’s much advertised fuel-cell program is little more than a marketing gimmick.

Read the full post at Biopact.

A new type of fuel cell powered by sunlight and glucose derived from biomass is described in the latest issue of the International Journal of Global Energy Issues. The experimental device works by using sunlight to convert the glucose into hydrogen to power the cell, which produces several hundred millivolts. The researchers from Japan’s Oita University think this renewable, green and sweet fuel supply might help tackle climate change.

Read the full story in Environmental Protection.

The pain at the pump might be short-lived as research from the University of Houston (UH) may eliminate one of the biggest hurdles to the wide-scale production of fuel cell-powered vehicles.

Peter Strasser, an assistant professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering, led the research team in discovering a method to make a fuel cell more efficient and less expensive. The initiative is one of four ongoing fuel cell projects in development at the Cullen College of Engineering at UH.

Read the full post at Green Car Congress.

The US Department of Energy’s (DOE) National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) published an Interim Progress Report summarizing results from the first two years of the Controlled Hydrogen Fleet and Infrastructure Demonstration and Validation Project.

Read the full stories in Environmental Protection.

News Item 1: Report Finds Challenges Lie Ahead In Applying EPA Statutes to Nanotech Waste

EPA must make key decisions about how to apply the two major end-of-life statutes to nanotechnology waste in order to ensure adequate oversight for these technologies, according to a report from the Wilson Centers Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies.

However, the report notes that the agency lacks much of the data on human health and eco-toxicity that form the basis for such determinations, creating some tough challenges ahead in EPAs decision-making process.

News Item 2: Nanotechnology Helps Scientists Develop Flexible Sensors for Hydrogen Vehicles

Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory have used their insights into nanomaterials to create flexible hydrogen sensors, which are at the heart of hydrogen fuel cells used in hydrogen vehicles.

In comparison to previously designed hydrogen sensors, which are rigid and use expensive, pure palladium, the new sensors are “bendy” and use single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) to improve efficiency and reduce cost. The development of these hydrogen sensors will help to ensure economical, environmental and societal safety, as the nation is realizing the potential for a more hydrogen-based economy, officials said on July 31.

Read the full story in Water & Wastewater Products.

An innovative type of porous material could be used for cleaning contaminated water and potentially purifying hydrogen for use in fuel cells, scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory announced on July 27.

Argonne materials scientists Peter Chupas and Mercouri Kanatzidis, along with colleagues at Northwestern and Michigan State universities, created and characterized porous semiconducting aerogels at Argonne’s Advanced Photon Source (APS). The researchers then submerged a fraction of a gram of the aerogel in a solution of mercury-contaminated water and found that the gel removed more than 99.99 percent of the heavy metal. The researchers believe that these gels can be used not only for this kind of environmental cleanup but also to remove impurities from hydrogen gas that could damage the catalysts in potential hydrogen fuel cells…

The researchers’ paper, titled “Porous semiconducting gels and aerogels from chalcogenide clusters,” appears in the July 27 issue of Science.

Read the full post at Green Car Congress.

Careful pairing of bacteria can create a microbial fuel cell (MFC) that consumes cellulose and produces electricity, according to researchers at Penn State.

Read the full post at Biopact.

Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory have identified a new technique for cleansing contaminated water and potentially purifying hydrogen for use in fuel cells, thanks to the discovery of a innovative type of porous material. Given that one of the most feasible ways to produce renewable and climate-neutral hydrogen is via biomass (overview), the research into purification techniques is of obvious interest to the biohydrogen community.

Read the full story in Environmental Protection.

While soft drinks can help add inches to your waist line, they also may add power to portable electronics in the future. Researchers at Saint Louis University in Missouri said they have developed a fuel cell battery that runs on virtually any sugar source — from soft drinks to tree sap — and has the potential to operate three to four times longer on a single charge than conventional lithium ion batteries.

For consumers, that could mean significantly longer time to talk and play music between charges. The new battery, which is also biodegradable, could eventually replace lithium ion batteries in many portable electronic applications, including computers, the scientists said. Their findings were described on March 25 at the 233rd national meeting of the American Chemical Society.

Read the full story in Water & Wastewater Products.

A carbon fiber, bottle-brush anode developed by Penn State researchers will provide more than enough surface for bacteria to colonize, for the first time making it possible to use microbial fuel cells for large-scale electricity production. In addition, a membrane-tube air cathode, adapted from existing wastewater treatment equipment, will complete the circuit.

Read the full story in Environmental Protection.

Researchers have developed a new mechanism to efficiently control hydrogen-fuel-cell power — an innovation they said could make fuel cells practical for such small machines as lawnmowers and chainsaws.

Many standard fuel cell designs use electronics to control power output, but such designs require complex systems to manage humidity and fuel recovery and recycling systems to achieve acceptable efficiency.

The new process controls the hydrogen feed to match the required power output, just as one controls the feed of gasoline into an internal combustion engine. The system functions as a closed system that uses the wastewater to regulate the size of the reaction chamber, the site where the gasses combine to form water, heat and electricity.

Read the full story at SDA India.

Samsung has developed a fuel cell for notebook computers. By collaborating with Samsung SDI and Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology, the 1,200-watt-hour fuel cell is conceived. According to Samsung, the fuel cell is said to have the capacity to power a notebook for a month without the need to recharge it during the time

Read the full story in the International Herald Tribune.

Honda Motor Co. expects to have begun selling fuel-cell vehicles in the general market by 2018, a news report said Friday.

Read the full story in Interior Design.

With help from award-winning computer game SimCity 3000, middle school students in 38 regions across the country are tackling the subject of fuel cells for the 15th annual National Engineers Week Future City Competition. Calling for seventh- and eighth-graders with the assistance of an engineer mentor to design a future city, the competition is held in conjunction with National Engineers Week. The grand prize winner will receive a trip to U.S. Space Camp in Huntsville, Alabama.

Read the full post at Ecorazzi.

Pay attention, NYC. Your tree is looking a little less green compared to the one out in LA. Last night, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger flipped the switch on an energy efficient Christmas tree powered by a 1KW Hydrogen Fuel Cell. Now, whether or not you believe in the coming ‘hydrogen economy’ (It will be here in 10-15 years. No really, stop laughing.) using this technology to power a massive Christmas tree is pretty cool. Useless, of course, in application — but in the scheme of things, highlighting any energy efficient future tech is a smart move. People pay attention to pretty things that glow. From the article,

Read the full story in Environmental Protection.

Fuel Cells 2000 and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Hydrogen Program announced on Nov. 14 they launched a new searchable database that documents fuel cell and hydrogen activity in the United States — stationary installations, vehicle demonstrations and fueling stations, as well as policies, initiatives and legislation designed to advance the development and use of hydrogen and fuel cell technologies.

The database builds on the recent Breakthrough Technologies Institute report, State Activities That Promote Fuel Cells and Hydrogen Infrastructure Development, with additional information about demonstrations and installations in a searchable format that provides more utility.

The free database is available at http://www.fuelcells.org/statedatabase.html.

Read the full post at Green Car Congress.

The Federal Transit Administration (FTA) announced today that it will provide $12 million in funding for several major advanced fuel-cell bus projects to CALSTART, the California operating division of WestStart-CALSTART. The projects will advance fuel-cell activities across California—in Oakland, San Francisco, the Coachella Valley and Southern California.

Read the full press release at RenewableEnergyAccess.com.

Proton Energy Systems, a leader in hydrogen generation and fuel cell technology and products, and a subsidiary of Wallingford, CT-based Distributed Energy Systems Corp. (NASDAQ: DESC), announced today that it has been awarded a $1.25 million follow-on contract from the U.S. Missile Defense Agency (MDA). The Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) Phase III contract calls for continued development of regenerative fuel cell technology for high altitude airships.

Read the full story in Water & Wastewater Products.

Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis have been working on a microbial fuel cell that generates electricity from wastewater. Advances in the design of this fuel cell in the last year have increased the power output by a factor of 10 and future designs, already in the minds of the researchers, hope to multiply that power output by 10 times again. If that goal can be achieved, the fuel cell could be scaled up for use in food and agricultural industries to generate electrical power, researchers said on Aug. 3.

Read the full article on Green Car Congress.

Toyota Motor (TMC) today outlined a set of development initiatives for the next four-plus years designed to augment its portfolio of technologies supporting sustainable mobility.