water, and when it absorbs water, it distorts, and that causes problems. And it likes to stick to things. So it’s not easy to work with.

We were able to solve these problems using some good robotics expertise, and the process was implemented on a pilot scale manufacturing line that we developed for BASF that is located in Frankfurt, Germany. That line came online in September 2002, and it has been in continuous operation ever since. It’s a fully automated MEA manufacturing line that has two large Cartesian robots with machine vision systems. Over the years, we have made many upgrades to that line. And because we developed the line with a focus on modularity and flexibility, we have been able to implement numerous changes and upgrades to the line very quickly. We have also developed a second generation pilot line located in Somerset, N.J., which has more than twice the capacity of the line in Frankfurt.

Since 2002, we’ve been working on new manufacturing processes, because even though we had flexibility and modularity in the design, we still used a lot of hard tooling, which is an extreme cost driver. So we have been working to get cost out of the system by going as much as possible to information-driven manufacturing. And we have been able to reduce the cost for product changeover by about 90 percent. That’s by doing things like going from hard tooling for cutting materials to use of lasers, by better design of the tools, better materials, and very importantly, by achieving major reductions in the time required to change over from one design to the next. Because the tools are very high precision, and because we were dealing with all this acid, the material selection was very limited, and previously, it would commonly take 10 to 12 weeks to get new tooling, and it was very expensive. Now, with information-driven manufacturing, we can change from one design to the next in five minutes.

AW: The ultimate goal is to make fuel cell manufacturing cost-effective enough that the technology can compete with other alternative energy technologies. How far are we from that?
Puffer: Depending on who you listen to, it could be anywhere from right around the corner to many years in the future. There are today numerous operating prototype systems. If you go to Iraq or Afghanistan, there are fuel cells powering solders’ devices in the field. If you look at fork trucks today, it’s very easy to cost-justify switching to a fuel cell hybrid fork truck instead of natural gas and battery-powered fork trucks. There are large fuel cells at waste treatment facilities, and there are fuel cell powered buses and trucks.

Everybody agrees that automotive is a killer application, but in my opinion, it will be a very long time before we see substantial numbers of fuel cell vehicles—at least a decade, I think. The DOE is focusing most of its work on the automotive application. But we as an industry need to focus on other, more near-term applications, in order for the industry to be able to succeed and live long enough to see the automotive application.

PROFILE

Raymond H. Puffer Jr. has served for more than 20 years in a variety of roles at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s Center for Automation Technologies and Systems (CATS), where for the past four years, he has served as program director, industrial automation. Prior to joining CATS, he completed more than 20 years service as an Army officer, progressing to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel and holding key technical positions. Puffer, a registered professional engineer and a certified acquisition manager, holds a bachelor’s degree from the United States Military Academy and a Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Colorado State University.

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