Mukerjee is a big dreamer, and his dreams are moving rapidly toward reality in the form of two recent start-ups that are putting his ideas into practice. The young firms, Protonics Corp and Integrated Fuel Cell Inc., are working with Mukerjee to create different kinds of fuel cells, including the much-vaunted hydrogen fueled car. That dream may be decades away, says Mukerjee, but they are much closer, he believes, to powering small, personal devices with disposable cartridges. The fuel cells that Protonics is developing for the U.S. military would power the high-tech gear like GPS and night-vision goggles that rapidly suck battery power and weigh down the troops.
Integrated Fuel Cell, Inc. is working on an automotive fuel cell, concentrating on methanol as the reactive ingredient. Methanol, like hydrogen, has no polluting by-products. It is extracted from coal or natural gas, and has the advantage, at about 46 cents per gallon, of being far cheaper than oil and independent of oil-related politics.
To reach Mukerjee for an interview, contact Genevieve Haas at g.haas@neu.edu or 617 373 5470.
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