India makes cheaper fuel cell part

India’s National Chemical Laboratory has developed a polymer that could be 100 times cheaper to use than the industry-standard material for building hydrogen fuel cells.

The low-cost material could help the country meet the central government’s stated goal of having a million hydrogen-fueled vehicles on the road by 2020.

The substance is a variant of polybenzimidazole, which is used in making spacesuits.

NCL senior scientist K. Pillai Vijayamohan said that an electrolyte made from the polymer is better than the industry standard, Nafion, because it is resistant to carbon monoxide and works at 150 degrees Celsius (302 degrees Fahrenheit).

Nafion is a polymer trademarked by Wilmington, Del.-based DuPont (NYSE: DD). The material is used for the proton exchange membrane of the fuel cell, allowing ions to move from one side of the cell to the other.

The low-cost polymer could be particularly useful because it can alleviate problems scientists face with using diluted hydrogen, a less expensive product than pure hydrogen. Diluted hydrogen also contains impurities, however, that cause higher working temperatures and corrosive reactions that reduce the fuel cell’s performance.

Jamshedpur, India-based Tata Steel recently announced it had developed a method to extract hydrogen from steel slag (See Harvesting hydrogen from steel). The company plans to test the process at a small plant before the end of the year.

Indian scientists are also working on designs for a 600-megawatt, high-temperature nuclear reactor for hydrogen production. The preliminary plans and materials are expected to be ready by 2017.