Recent Advances in High-Temperature PEM Fuel Cells

Sivakumar Pasupathi is programme manager for HySA Systems competence centre, one of three national centres under Hydrogen South Africa (HySA), hosted by the South African Institute for Advanced Materials Chemistry (SAIAMC) at the University of the Western Cape (UWC), South Africa. He is also a senior lecturer at the University of the Western Cape. He obtained his PhD from the University of Pisa, Italy and has been working in the field of hydrogen and fuel cells since late 1990’s. He is a NRF rated scientist and principal investigator in several bilateral projects with international partners. In his role at HySA Systems, he is managing combined heat and power (CHP) programme. His current focus is on developing components and systems, covering the whole value chain of PEM fuel cells, for CHP and FCXV applications. His interests include PEM based fuel cells and electrolysers. He has published over 100 publications including papers in peer-reviewed international journals and conference proceedings, and is an inventor of 11 patents and counting. He has been spoken at several events and successfully organized international workshops and conferences.

Juan Carlos Calderón Gómez received his PhD degree in 2013, at the University of La Laguna, Spain with a thesis on catalysts for direct methanol fuel cells. He went on to be a post-doctoral researcher at Instituto de Carboquimica (CSIC), Spain. Currently, he is a post-doctoral research fellow at HySA Systems, at the University of the Western Cape, South Africa. His research is focused on the design of Pd@Pt and Co@Pt core shells supported on different carbon materials with the goal of obtaining low-Pt content cathodic catalysts able to improve the oxygen reduction reaction, thus increasing the performance of proton exchange membrane fuel cells.

Huaneng Su graduated from South China University of Technology in 2010 with a PhD in Applied Chemistry during which he worked in the development of high performance Membrane Electrode Assemblies (MEAs) with Ultra-Low Platinum loading for Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell (PEMFC). Dr. Su continued his research as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the South African Institute for Advanced Materials Chemistry at the University of the Western Cape, focusing particularly on water electrolysers, H2/O2 fuel cells and Unitised Regenerative Fuel Cells (URFCs). For his research work, he received a NRF Innovation Postdoctoral Fellowship (South Africa, 2011), a Guangdong Province Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation (Guangdong, China, 2011), an Innovation Fund for Excellent Doctoral Dissertation (South China University of Technology, 2010), and a Best Paper Award (National PhD Candidates Academic Conference, 2010). He is currently Head of the R & D Group at HySA Systems in South Africa.

Harikishan Reddy graduated from the National Institute of Technology Rourkela with Master of Technology in Chemical Engineering and received his PhD degree from the Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad in 2013. During his PhD research, Dr. Reddy worked on thermal management studies for a high temperature proton exchange membrane fuel cell stack. In September 2013 he joined the HySA Systems as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow. Dr. Reddy’s current work focuses on the assembling and testing high temperature proton exchange membrane fuel cell stack for CHP and Hybrid Hydrogen Fuel Cell Vehicles, in-depth characterization of the fuel cell stack system and specific sub-units, characterizing sub-units and components for their integration into modular systems, to be extensively involved in the bench-top integration of the FC module and sub-units and testing of the integrated power module for stationary and mobile applications.

Piotr Bujlo obtained his PhD from the Wroclaw University of Technology, focusing on the R&D of Polymer Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells (PEMFC), specifically in materials aspects, cell construction, cell and stack testing or stationary and automotive applications. Dr. Bujlo is a member of the scientific advisory boards of Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education, Ministry of Regional Development and Polish Agency for Enterprise Development and project evaluator at Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education and National Center for Research and Development. He is currently a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at HySA Systems Competence Centre, University of the Western Cape. His project focuses on the development, integration and validation of fuel cell stacks for CHP Systems.

Cordellia Sita holds a PhD in Chemical Engineering from the University of Pretoria. During her 17 year career, Dr. Sita has worked in academia, private and public sectors. She is currently Director of HySA Systems Competence Centre at the University of Western Cape, South Africa.

Bruno G. Pollet is a full Professor of Renewable Energy at the Department of Energy and Process Engineering at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in Trondheim. His research covers a wide range of areas in Electrochemical Engineering, Electrochemical Energy and Sono-electrochemistry (the use of Power Ultrasound in Electrochemistry) from the development of novel materials, hydrogen fuel cell to water treatment/disinfection demonstrators & prototypes. He was a Professor of Energy Materials and Systems at the University of the Western Cape (South Africa) and R&D Director of the National Hydrogen South Africa (HySA) Systems Competence Centre. He was also a co-founder and an Associate Director of the University of Birmingham Centre for Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Research in the UK. He was awarded a Diploma in Chemistry and Material Sciences from the Université Joseph Fourier (France), a BSc (Hons) in Applied Chemistry from Coventry University (UK) and an MSc in Analytical Chemistry from The University of Aberdeen (UK). He also gained his PhD in Physical Chemistry in the field of Electrochemistry and Sonochemistry at the Coventry University Sonochemistry Centre.