The HydroGen Corporation has announced that they have started up a 400 kw hydrogen-powered phosphoric acid fuel cell (PAFC) at ASHTA Chemicals in Ashtabula, Ohio. This full-scale commercial demonstration project uses “by-product hydrogen” from the ASHTA plant that is created in the production of chlor-alkali.
The electricity created by the HydroGen PAFC is used to help power the chemical facility. The HydroGen fuel cell prototype serves as a demonstration for several multi-megawatt fuel cell power plants to follow.
In the future, the 400 kw fuel cell will serve as the first of five such modules in a standard 2 MW “Power Island”. This HydroGen Power Island can then be scaled up to larger fuel cell power plants in the 6 MW – 30 MW range.
The chlor-alkali hydrogen fuel cell demonstration project in Ohio is not the first one of its kind, however. In March, I had talked about a chlor-alkali fuel cell power plant in The Netherlands, which had achieved over 4,000 operating hours.
In addition, the IWHUP (Integrated Waste Hydrogen Utilization Project) project in Canada is helping chemical companies that produce sodium chlorate use the waste hydrogen to power vehicles. IWHUP has estimated that chemical companies all over Canada waste enough hydrogen to power 200,000 fuel cell cars.
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