Betting on fuel cells' future
Ion Power is among small companies advancing the technology
By STEVEN CHURCH / The News Journal
05/05/2005
Stephen Grot has more ideas than he has time to pursue as co-owner of Ion Power Inc., a small technology company near Delaware City that makes parts for fuel cells.
So when a brainstorm struck him last year about a better way to produce hydrogen, the fuel that runs fuel cells, he asked researchers at Penn State for help. Ion Power doesn't do any hydrogen research. Without help, his idea might have gone nowhere.
By collaborating with other researchers, Grot helped discover a more efficient way of coaxing microbes that live in wastewater to produce hydrogen. If the findings are confirmed and the process refined, any town with a wastewater plant could someday produce hydrogen for use in cars powered by fuel cells, Grot said.
And anything that boosts the use of fuel cells would be a boost for Ion Power, which Grot founded six years ago after working as a fuel cell scientist for General Motors.
Ion Power is one of the many small technology companies in the United States fighting for a toehold in the fast-growing fuel cell industry.
Fuel cells offer the potential for clean - and eventually affordable - energy. If the technological glitches are overcome, fuel cells could replace power plants, gasoline engines and lead-filled batteries.
Ion Power has received a $3.3 million federal grant to develop ways to recycle the platinum used in fuel cells. The high cost of platinum is one of the reasons that experts say fuel cells are not yet able to compete with traditional engines.
The U.S. Department of Energy estimates that electricity from a new fuel cell would cost about $3,700 per kilowatt of energy produced compared with $1,700 per kilowatt produced by a new nuclear power plant and $1,100 per kilowatt from a new coal-burning plant.
The energy department has set aside hundreds of millions of dollars to help pay for research into developing a fuel cell that would produce electricity at a cost of about $400 per kilowatt.
Grot's work on fuel cells is directly related to a discovery that his father, Walther Grot, made while working for the DuPont Co. in the 1960s. Walther Grot discovered Nafion, which has been used in fuel cell membranes for more than 35 years.
Today, Ion Power's research involves reusing the platinum from Nafion-based membranes. Walther Grot, who is 75, now works with the company his son founded, helping out with research and offering advice.
Grot, 41, grew up in Chadds Ford in a home where science "was the family hobby," he said.
He studied at Penn State University and the University of Delaware. Eventually he helped lead General Motors efforts to develop a fuel cell vehicle.
He owns Ion Power with his wife, Wendy, who works as the company's human resource manager.
The company gets about 50 percent of its revenues from government contracts and the rest from sales of Nafion and Nafion-based membranes for fuel cells.
Contact Steven Church at 324-2786 or schurch@delawareonline.com.
