Fourth Annual ASME Fuel Cell Conference Attracts International Audience

NFCRC welcomed participants from more than 20 countries

More than 200 people participated in the American Society of Mechanical Engineer’s 4th International Conference on Fuel Cell Science, Engineering and Technology in Irvine this June, attracting attendees from more than 20 countries. Hosted by the National Fuel Cell Research Center, the conference was considered by many to be the premier technical meeting for the fuel cell community in the United States.

The three-day conference included sessions on low- and high-temperature fuel cell technologies for stationary, automotive and portable applications. General topical areas included materials science and manufacturing, thermodynamic analysis, fuel processing, controls, and transient analysis.

Subhash Singhal, director of the fuel cell program at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory; Taiyo Kawai, general manager of fuel cell system development for Toyota Motor Corporation; and Robert Sawyer, chair of the California Air Resources Board, provided keynote presentations. Chung Liu, deputy executive officer of the South Coast Air Quality Management District, the event’s primary sponsor, also spoke.

The conference took place at the Irvine Hyatt Regency, and participants were bused to the UC Irvine campus for an opening-night reception at the NFCRC. Guests took part in student-led tours of the center, a drive-and-ride featuring Toyota’s Fuel Cell Hybrid Vehicle, and demonstrations of a Fuel Cell Powered Segway developed by the U.S. Department of Defense Fuel Cell Test and Evaluation Center. Toyota’s Fine-N fuel cell concept vehicle was on display, along with a 5-kilowatt stationary fuel cell and a one-of-a-kind demonstration unit designed to show how energy efficiency is increased through the capture and re-use of heat created during the generation of electricity.

NFCRC Director Scott Samuelsen co-chaired this meeting, which will also be held June 18-20, 2007, in New York City. For more information, see http://www.asmeconferences.org/fuelcell07. The conference will return to Irvine in 2008.