Nuvera Gasoline Fuel Processor Achieves Major Milestone in DOE Fuel Cell Program

MILAN, Italy and CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts, February 16 -- Company's STAR reformer exceeds performance requirements; represents innovative solution to onboard hydrogen generation

Nuvera Fuel Cells today announced its STAR(TM) fuel processor successfully completed acceptance testing at Argonne National Lab (ANL). The innovative technology, which is being developed in conjunction with the US Department of Energy (DOE) aspart of the government's FreedomCAR and Hydrogen Fuel Initiative, met or exceeded performance requirements for system size, power, efficiency, and gas purity required for proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cells.

STAR (or "Substrate Transportation Autothermal Reformer"), which has been under development for the past 4 years, is a revolutionary technology in terms of size and operation and represents a significant step forward for onboard hydrogen generation for fuel cell vehicles. During recent tests conducted at ANL, the 75-liter fuel processor converted up to 200 kWth of gasoline into a stream of hydrogen containing less than 10 ppm of carbon monoxide, yielding up to 2.1 kWth of hydrogen per liter.

"We have worked with Nuvera for over 10 years, and they have consistently delivered innovative technology," said Patrick Davis, Team Leader of DOE's Hydrogen, Fuel Cells, and Infrastructure Technologies. "Working toward difficult DOE performance targets, Nuvera has demonstrated significant improvements in this state-of-the-art hardware."

The results support Nuvera's claim for high power density for an onboard fuel processor capable of powering a fuel cell vehicle. Onboard fuel processors such as STAR will enable fuel cell vehicles to operate on gasoline, among other hydrocarbon fuels, which addresses a critical link in the supply chain.

"As our latest generation of fuel processing technology, STAR demonstrates the viability of onboard fuel processing for tomorrow's fuel cell vehicles," said William Mitchell, Vice President of Marketing at Nuvera Fuel Cells. "This is important since the debate continues over how to power tomorrow's fuel cell vehicles, and there remains significant challenges associated with onboard hydrogen storage and building a global hydrogen fuel infrastructure. We believe our onboard fuel processing technology addresses the fuel infrastructure issue and will expedite the era of fuel cell vehicles."

Nuvera Fuel Cells

Nuvera Fuel Cells (www.nuvera.com) is a leading designer and developer of fuel cell power systems, fuel processors, and fuel cell stacks for the automotive, distributed generation, commercial, and industrial markets. Since 1992, its fuel processors and PEM fuel cell stacks have been successfully tested and evaluated by major automobile and appliance manufacturers, research institutions, telecommunications organisations, and industrial and energy companies. Nuvera's fuel processors have demonstrated the ability to extract hydrogen from a number of liquid and gaseous fuels such as gasoline, ethanol, methanol, natural gas, kerosene, propane, butane, and more.