Connecticut Global Fuel Cell Center

With the famed Brooklyn Bridge as a backdrop, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) staged its fifth International Conference on Fuel Cell Science, Engineering and Technology June 18-20, 2007. Dr. Nigel Sammes, the UTC Chair Professor of Fuel Cell Technology in UConn's Connecticut Global Fuel Cell Center and editor of the Journal of Fuel Cell Science and Technology, chaired the conference with co-chair Scott Samuelsen, director of the National Fuel Cell Research Center (NFCRC) at the University of California - Irvine.

The conference drew nearly 400 attendees - from 27 countries and including academic and government researchers as well as industry leaders - for an insider's view of the state of fuel cell science and commercialization. Four distinguished fuel cell leaders presented plenary sessions:

Patrick Davis, Acting Program Manager of the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Hydrogen, Fuel Cells and Infrastructure Technology

John Scott, Chief of the Energy Conversion Branch at NASA's Johnson Space Craft Center in Houston

Wayne Surdoval, Fuel Cells Technology Manager for the U.S. Department of Energy's National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL)

Heinrich Lienkamp, Ph.D., Head of the Business Development/Chemical Engineering Department for the Division Energies and Utilities of Infraserv GmbH & Co. Höchst KG

Abstracts of their talks may be found at http://www.asmeconferences.org/FuelCell07/Plenary.cfm.

The conference was segmented into four tracks featuring 180 technical and business-related presentations, along with poster presentations. The tracks focused on:

Engineering Science for Low Temperature Systems

Engineering Science for High Temperature Systems

Fuel Cell Systems: Integration and Implementation

Fuel Cell Systems: Regulatory, Policy & Investment

Speakers from many of the world's pioneering companies were on hand to deliver keynotes, including individuals from General Motors, Rolls Royce, United Technologies Research Center, UTC Power, Hamilton Sundstrand, Tokyo Gas, General Electric, FuelCell Energy, H2Gen Innovations, Inc., Consolidated Edison, Keyspan Business Solutions, Plug Power, Avalence, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL), NYSERDA, CT Clean Energy Fund and several leading academic programs.

A conference highlight was the award of the second F.T. Bacon Medal to Nguyen Minh. Dr. Minh is an internationally recognized expert on solid oxide fuel cell technology and has been involved in the development of fuel cells and related technologies for 20 years. Until May 2007, he was Chief Scientist for Fuel Cells with GE Global Research of Torrance, CA. Dr. Minh authored the 2005 book Science and Technology of Ceramic Fuel Cells, published by Elsevier. Click here to view Dr. Minh's brief biography. The F.T. Bacon Medal is named in honor of Englishman Francis Bacon (1904-92), who developed the alkali fuel cell technology commercialized by Pratt & Whitney and used in the Apollo space programs. Edward Bacon, son of Francis Bacon, was among the co-presenters of the medal to Dr. Minh.