TROY – ECD-Ovonics is working on a unique, non-PEM fuel cell design which could end up being cheaper and easier to produce than current PEM stacks, and which could also replace conventional batteries as energy storage devices. Claims like this may sound like pie-in-the-sky, but dissenters hardly faze this group, because they?ve heard it all before.
In the early 1980s, the Ovonic Battery Company was formed to develop nickel-metal hydride batteries, which would eventually replace lead-acid as the storage medium of choice for electric vehicles, as well as battery-powered devices, large and small. At the time, critics had a field day with the budding technology.
?I think it?s got a tremendous amount of promise,? says Dennis Corrigan, president and COO of Ovonic Fuel Cell Company, of the Ovonic Regenerative Fuel Cell technology, which functions both as a fuel cell and a storage battery. ?We certainly feel it?s similar to when nickel metal hydride (NiMH) batteries were an invention instead of a viable part of our business,? says Corrigan. ?There were people who said (NiMH) would never amount to anything, either in consumer or in automotive applications. It turns out they were wrong.?
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