New Member Profile
Arthur D. Little Expanding its Role in Hydrogen Energy
and Hydrogen-Fueled Fuel Cell Systems Development
Arthur D. Little, Inc., is an internationally
prominent consulting firm, with over 50 offices and laboratories in more
than 30 countries. Since 1886, Arthur D. Little staff members have worked
with organizations worldwide to help them expand their knowledge capital
and discover new paths to sustained high performance. Arthur D. Little has
three businesses: technology and product development; management consulting;
and environmental, health, and safety consulting. Arthur D. Little is unique
in its commitment to helping its clients reinvent their organizations, enhance
their capacity for learning and change, and create lasting value.
In the field of hydrogen energy, Arthur D. Little
has considerable experience in all facets of technology, including generation,
storage, and utilization. The company’s work spans the spectrum from
laboratory-based development of innovative technologies to market assessments
for fuel cell vehicles to strategy formation and business development plan
implementation for large government programs. Activities in these areas
are summarized below.
Hydrogen Generation
Over the past five years, Arthur D. Little has
been working with the federal government and an assortment of commercial
clients to develop fuel processors for providing hydrogen-rich gas streams
to fuel cells. To date, two micro-scale and five full-scale units have been
fabricated and tested. Each of these fuel processors has been used for a
different application. For PEM fuel cells, which are targeted for use in
automotive applications, ethanol and gasoline fuel processors have been
designed, built, and tested. Although industrial processes for efficiently
reforming alcohols and hydrocarbons to hydrogen are well-established, the
adaptation of this technology to a small-scale, highly integrated reformer
suitable for vehicle use had not previously been demonstrated. For solid
oxide fuel cells, which are being explored in stationary power generation
applications, JP-8 fuel has been used as the liquid fuel input.
Arthur D. Little’s fuel processors are
based on catalytically enhanced partial oxidation technology. Their design
has benefited from the company’s extensive physical and chemical modeling
capabilities, and their performance has been tested and demonstrated in
the ADL Reformer Test Facility. Cumulative operating experience on laboratory
prototypes exceeds 2,500 hours. Arthur D. Little multifuel reformers were
designed for vehicular or portable applications, and are accordingly low
in cost, low in weight, small in size, and responsive to dynamic loading.
Arthur D. Little currently is working with a
major industrial gas producer to explore the potential of technology in
small-scale (less then one million scfd) hydrogen generation applications.
As part of this initiative, Arthur D. Little is conducting a comparative
assessment of small-scale hydrogen purification technologies to identify
R&D; needs.
Hydrogen Storage
Arthur D. Little has developed a novel means
for high-efficiency storage of hydrogen in a reactor that uses a metal hydride
thermally coupled with a phase-change material. The company is presently
engaged in the development of nonpoisoning hydriding alloys that will allow
“dirty” gas, such as reformate, to be simultaneously stored and
purified.
Arthur D. Little was retained by the U.S. Department
of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Transportation Technologies (OTT) to conduct
an assessment of hydrogen storage technologies. Also for OTT, Arthur D.
Little performed a landmark experimental study of carbon sorbents used to
enhance pressurized hydrogen gas storage. The results of this study will
soon be published by the International Journal of Hydrogen Energy.
A specially equipped Hydrogen Storage Test Facility
was built at ADL headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts (U.S.A.), that
includes fully encased, nitrogen-purged electronics and other critical safety
features.
Hydrogen Utilization
The integration of fuel processors and other
hydrogen supply sources with fuel cells demands an intimate familiarity
with fuel cells. This experience was drawn upon recently in the design of
a fully integrated fuel cell auxiliary power unit for a heavy-duty truck,
carried out at the request of a major European vehicle manufacturer. Moreover,
Arthur D. Little has performed several major assessments of fuel cell technology,
as applied to utility power plants, building HVAC systems, transportable
power supplies, and vehicles.
Arthur D. Little has also investigated experimentally
the extent to which diesel fuel can be supplemented by hydrogen in a supercharged
diesel engine running at constant speed but varying load, as diesel engine
gen-sets are operated. Arthur D. Little is also about to embark on a technical
analysis, market assessment, and verification testing of a stationary hydrogen-enriched
natural gas engine as part of a joint industrial/academic partnership.
Business Development
Arthur D. Little is currently working on behalf
of the DOE Nevada Operations Office and Bechtel Nevada to establish the
Hydrogen Energy Systems Test and Demonstration Facility, based in Las Vegas.
The facility will advance the development and commercialization of hydrogen
transportation and stationary power generation technologies. Many of the
center’s activities will be conducted at the Nevada Test Site (NTS),
a 1,350 square mile outdoor laboratory formerly used as the nation’s
nuclear weapons proving grounds. The world-class engineering facilities
and expertise at NTS will be made available for various hydrogen energy
initiatives. The first of these initiatives will be underway early in 1997.
[For further information, contact Arthur D. Little, Inc., 20 Acorn
Park, Cambridge, MA 02140-2390, U.S.A.; phone: +1.617.498.5000; fax: +1.617.498.7200.]
©1997. All Rights Reserved. A Publication of
the National Hydrogen Association.
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