Abstract

Fuel cells are now available commercially in niche markets, and are emerging into mass market applications, particularly for the residential scale co-generation of electricity and heat. In this guise fuel cell products can reduce carbon emissions from hydrocarbon fuels such as natural gas and, in some variants, offer the potential to be coupled with fuels arising from green waste or biomass. In transport applications, when coupled with low carbon sources of hydrogen fuel, fuel cell powered cars and buses offer one route by which carbon emissions from the transport sector can be significantly reduced. This lecture will discuss these issues, highlighting some of the science and engineering challenges that remain to be addressed, and will draw on some of the presenters current research in fuel cell engineering.

Professor Nigel Brandon FREng holds an engineering degree and PhD from Imperial College London. His research interests are focussed on energy systems, and in particular the development and application of fuel cell technologies. Following research positions with BP and Rolls-Royce he returned to Imperial College as a faculty member in 1998. In 2004 he was appointed to the Shell Chair in Sustainable Development in Energy, in 2005 as Executive Director of the Imperial College Energy Futures Lab, and in 2006 as Senior Research Fellow to the UK Research Councils Energy programme and the UK Government Office of Science Focal Point in Energy with China. He leads the EPSRC funded Supergen fuel cell consortia, and is a founder and Chief Scientist of Ceres Power, an AIM listed fuel cell company spun out from Imperial College in 2001. He was awarded the 2007 Silver Medal from the UK Royal Academy of Engineering for his contribution to fuel cell engineering leading to commercial exploitation. He is a chartered engineer, a Fellow of the Energy Institute, a Fellow of the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining, and Fellow of The City and Guilds of London Institute. He sits on the Editorial Boards of the Journals of Renewable Power Generation, Chemistry and Sustainability: Energy and Materials, and Power and Energy.