Purdue tech firm brings fuel cell components to market

A firm at the Purdue Technology Center in Merrillville is banking that two new products it manufactured will help fuel cells become more powerful and efficient.

Technology firm NuVant Systems Inc. will market gas diffusion layers and gas diffusion electrodes under its ELAT brand. NuVant Systems CEO Eugene Smotkin said the creation of the products marks the first time since the company was founded in 1999 that it has manufactured actual fuel cell components instead of selling fuel cell diagnostic and electrode fabrication equipment.

The gas diffusion layers and electrodes are key components to a functioning polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell. This type of fuel cell can be used in automotive, residential and portable power applications.

Fuel cells are devices that use fuel and oxygen to create electricity through an electrochemical process, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.

While NuVant didn't invent the technology for the electrodes and layers, the company developed a production method that presents a market opportunity.

"We have a nice method for making these at a high rate, uniformly and (at a) high quality," Smotkin said of his privately held company. "We are now marketing it. We hope that automobile companies and certainly all these university fuel cell researchers and many industries will claim ELAT from us."

He said the ELAT products have been trademarked in the United States, and efforts are under way to do the same in the European Union and Canada.

NuVant Systems also is making "excellent" progress on bringing an extended-life direct methanol fuel cell to market, Smotkin said. Using a multiyear product development grant from the U.S. Department of Defense, he estimated a product could be brought to market in the next 12 months.

Source: nwi.com