News Release

An 'off the wall' idea

Military looks to Northeastern professor for fuel cell future

Peer-Reviewed Publication

Northeastern University

"The goal is to get off the wall," says Professor Sanjeev Mukerjee of Northeastern's chemistry department when he talks about his work developing long-lasting, non-polluting fuel cells. Getting "off the wall," he explains, means no more plugging in, no more cell phone battery chargers, and no more looking for an outlet for laptops, digital cameras or PDAs. Mukerjee and the firm Protonics have already been contracted by the military to develop portable fuel cells for soldiers in the field. In a future that may be as close as ten years away, Mukerjee envisions small, light, portable cartridges that will easily generate 5,000 hours of power – a far cry from today's rechargeable batteries. And when the cartridge, powered by clean hydrogen or methanol, is empty, he says, it can be tossed and replaced without ever needing a wall socket.

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.

Northeastern University, located in the heart of Boston, Massachusetts, is a world leader in cooperative education and recognized for its expert faculty and first-rate academic and research facilities. Through co-op, Northeastern undergraduates alternate semesters of full-time study with semesters of paid work in fields relevant to their professional interests and major, giving them nearly two years of professional experience upon graduation. The majority of Northeastern graduates receive a job offer from a co-op employer. Cited for excellence two years running by U.S. News & World Report, Northeastern was named a top college in the northeast by the Princeton Review 2003/04. In addition, Northeastern's career services was awarded top honors by Kaplan Newsweek's "Unofficial Insiders Guide to the 320 Most Interesting Colleges and Universities," 2003 edition. For more information, please visit http://www.northeastern.edu.


Disclaimer: AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert system.