American soldiers in the field rely on laptop computers, night-vision glasses, satellite phones and other battery-operated technology, but not without paying a price.
Batteries add more than 25 pounds to the loads they carry, said Andrew Herring, an associate professor of chemical engineering at the Colorado School of Mines.
The school will work on technology to lower the cost of fuel cells to replace those batteries, thanks to a Department of Defense grant announced this week.
“This is a massive deal from a cost point of view and from the point of view of the poor soldier carrying the batteries,” Herring said.
Mines, one of four schools cooperating in the research, will receive $650,000 a year for five years from the total $7.5 million grant. Researchers from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst College, the University of California at Riverside and the University of Chicago also are involved.
Fuel cells combine hydrogen and oxygen to make electricity. If the two elements aren’t separated, they burn.
In the hydrogen/oxygen fuel cell, a dividing membrane must conduct protons while acting as an electrical conductor and efficient barrier to the gases on either side, Herring wrote in a paper.
Acid-based separators now in use work well but rely on platinum and other costly metals to act as catalysts, Herring said.
With Mines leading the effort, the universities will research alkali-based films to act as separators utilizing nickel, copper or other metals.
“It is cheaper, and the catalyst works better,” Herring said. “The issue is that no one has figured out how to make a decent membrane that we can afford to give to every soldier.”
The Department of Defense grant is part of $227 million in grants to 70 schools nationwide participating in basic research.
Mines will also receive money for three other projects — research into preventing degradation of naval fuels; improvements to military lasers; and the use of electromagnetic radiation to identify land mines and explosive devices — but will not lead them.
Tom McGhee: 303-954-1671 or tmcghee@denverpost.com
