Electronics Weekly Electronics Design & Components Tech News
The intention to spin out the firm was revealed to EW last year (08/10/03) and now funding from an as yet undisclosed Government source has been made available.
“It will be called St Andrews Fuel Cells,” Dr John Irvine, likely to be research director in the new firm, told Electronics Weekly. “It will develop technology for leisure and defence. That is transportable power in the 500W to 5kW range.”
Meanwhile, Dr Alan Feighery, who along with Irvine and Dr Paul Connor will found the firm, has won funding from The Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE); to work on further prototypes of St Andrews’ patented ‘SOFCRoll’ fuel cell – a modification of conventional solid-oxide fuel cell structures.
“The SOFCRoll fuel cell is a multi-layer ceramic device which operates at high temperatures,” said Feighery. The St Andrews’ design “enables the use of cheap, easily scaleable manufacturing and can compete with other fuel cell designs being developed globally”.
There are two ways to construct SOFCs: planar and cylindrical. Planar cells use less material, but cylindrical cells are easier to construct.
St Andrews claims to have found a way to adapt the low-material structure used in planar cells, making it suitable for low-cost cylindrical cell construction.
