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3 Fuel-Cell Firms to Launch at USC

Posted on: Monday, 3 October 2005, 18:00 CDT

By The State, Columbia, S.C.

Oct. 3--Three USC startup companies focused on fuel cell research will launch Tuesday during a conference to unveil a long-term strategy for building a hydrogen economy in the state.

The companies -- Palmetto Fuel Cell Analysis & Design, Palmetto Fuel Cell Technologies, and DEnergy -- want to capitalize on USC's research and kick-start South Carolina's bid to be a player in an emerging field.

Fuel cells generate energy using hydrogen and oxygen in a process that emits only water vapor. Hydrogen, the most abundant element on earth, has been touted by some as a replacement for oil and other fossil fuels.

A PricewaterhouseCoopers study projects the global market for fuel cells will be $46 billion a year by 2011 and $2.6 trillion by 2021.

USC has made "next energy" one of its four principal areas of research. One of the first buildings planned for Innovista, the new USC research campus, will be dedicated largely to fuel cells and related research.

The company announcements will come during Tuesday's Engenuity '05 conference at the Columbia Metropolitan Convention Center. The conference, which will focus on efforts to build entrepreneurship in Columbia, will include the unveiling of a 20-year "S.C. Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Strategy."

Building a base of commercial fuel cell-related companies is considered critical to make South Carolina a player in the hydrogen economy.

The three startups could wind up involved in all three sectors of the fuel cell industry: stationary power, portable power and automotive power.

Stationary fuel cell systems can be used to provide electricity to homes or businesses. Portable systems can power products ranging from emergency generators to laptop computers.

Much of the attention on fuel cells has been focused on their potential to replace the internal combustion engine in automobiles and other vehicles.

USC has made a significant effort to help launch the three companies and to work with their principals, said John Van Zee, head of the National Science Foundation center for fuel cell research on the Columbia campus.

Van Zee, who is a principal in two of the companies, said it is the right time to start the companies.

"You have to understand that fuel cells is still a nascent market, so to have introduced companies like this four years ago, who would have been our customers?" he asked.

--Palmetto Fuel Cell Analysis & Design will be involved in writing software for fuel cell and fuel cell system designers, as well as providing service. Sirivatch Shimpalee, a research assistant professor at USC, also is involved in the company.

The company's software simulates or models the flow of air and hydrogen in three dimensions through a fuel cell.

As an analogy, the auto industry used to study clay models of cars in wind tunnels, but now it uses computer models to simulate the flow of air going over them. "That is what our software does for the fuel cell industry," Van Zee said.

--Palmetto Fuel Cell Technologies is a hardware company going after the next generation of fuel cell design. The founders are Van Zee and Tom Militello, a Columbia-based entrepreneur and founding member of FuelCellSouth, a nonprofit organization working to grow the industry.

Militello has been working on the project for about nine months. He said Palmetto Fuel Cell Technologies is South Carolina's first startup fuel cell company.

"We are hopeful that as the Horizon Center comes on line, we will find a joint venture partner that wants to set up a collaboration lab with us," he said.

The Horizon Center will be located at Blossom and Assembly streets and will house USC's next energy research.

Militello said he is courting fuel cell manufacturers.

--The third company, DEnergy, is working on compact and economic storage of hydrogen gas for fuel cells.

The principals of DEnergy include USC researcher Thomas Davis, chemical engineering professor Michael Matthews and USC mechanical engineering alumnus Walker Rast.

Before retiring to Hilton Head Island, Rast was chairman and chief executive officer of Keyes Fibre Co., a paper-packaging concern in Connecticut.

DEnergy's technology involves a chemical compound that reacts with water to form hydrogen, Davis said. It has applications for emergency and portable power, he said.

"If you go off on a camping trip and need to generate electricity with a fuel cell, you can have this chemical energy stored for however long you want before you use it. If you keep your powder dry, it will last forever," he said.

Palmetto Fuel Cell Technologies and DEnergy are likely to be housed in the USC incubator. Van Zee said he is not sure where Palmetto Analysis and Design will be headquartered. Each of the startups essentially is being funded initially from the founders' pocketbooks.

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Copyright (c) 2005, The State, Columbia, S.C.

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Source: The State (Columbia, S.C.)

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