THE LONG ROAD TO TECHNOLOGY COMMERCIALIZATION- CASE OF FUEL CELLS FOR TRUCK

Geoffrey Ballard, CM, OBC (16 October 1932 – 2 August 2008) was a Canadian geophysicist and businessman. One of the studies he had been involved in at the U.S. Federal Energy Conservation Research office was on electric cars powered by conventional lead-acid batteries. Ballard had  met Ralph Schwartz in Arizona, who introduced him to the idea of using lithium batteries in place of lead-acid, as they would be much lighter. However, at the time, lithium batteries were not able to be recharged. Schwartz convinced Ballard that they should study the problem, and Ballard cashed in his pension to buy a portion of their new joint venture, American Energizer. Schwartz and Ballard were introduced to Keith Prater at the University of Texas chemistry department, and sold him on the idea of developing a new rechargeable lithium battery technology with them. Prater was able to quickly determine that no one knew what the product of the lithium-salt reactions in existing batteries were, and guessed that it was lithium dithionite, which he was able to synthesize. Working in a trailer, Ballard and Schwartz built a simple battery and Prater brought a sample of the lithium dithionite, and when they were placed together and charged, a weak current was produced. After further development the system was able to be recharged about a dozen times. Ballard had always wanted to return to Canada, so Schwartz sold his interest in the battery technology to Ballard for $1, while Ballard sold his interest in Schwartz's latest venture, a mechanical anti-lock braking system for the same $1. In 1979 Ballard moved to Vancouver and became president and CEO of Ultra Energy.

In 1983, Ballard, Prater and Paul Howard started looking for new ideas for their development side to work on as the funds for the battery project dried up. Among a variety of ideas were a number of attempts to find government funding, which eventually led them to a Department of National Defense (DND) request for proposals for bids to produce a low-cost solid polymer fuel cell. Now known as PEM's, these cells had only been used commercially in Project Gemini and a few other space probes, and General Electric gave up on the technology when NASA moved onto other fuel cell designs for Project Apollo and the Space Shuttle. Although a number of attempts had been made to lower the high cost of PEM cells since then, none had been commercially successful. They won the $500,000 contract, which called for them to provide three prototype cells that produced between 50 and 150 watts and be ready in 28 months. After meeting the requirements, they won a follow-up contract, and it was during this project, in 1986, when they reached a milestone of producing four times as much energy per unit volume as any previous fuel cell.

Feeling the technology was ready for commercial use, in 1989 Ballard raised $4 million in public money from the British Columbia government to build a fuel cell powered bus, introducing it at Science World in 1993. He took the bus to energy fairs around the world, and Daimler-Chrysler and Ford invested $750 million to buy a one-third stake in the newly public Ballard Power Systems. Ballard told Time in 1999 that the fuel-cell cars should become economical by 2010.

Dr. Sean MacKinnon was Senior Research Scientist at Ballard Power Systems , where he drafted, negotiated and managed a High Temperature PEM research project funded through Natural Resources Canada, in collaboration with NRC-IFCI. Later he worked at General Motors Fuel cell Research lab as Principle Investigator and program manager for collabative membrane development programs with strategic partners. He continued work at National Research Council of Canada and developed proton exchange membranes for automotive polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells. Dr Deve Ghosh was Director R&D at NRC Institute for Fuel Cell Innovation in Vancouver, BC, development of Low cost durable PEMFC Pt alloy catalyst on non-carbon support ( $10M 3 year project with Ballard & AFCC) was one of major R&D project.

Mr. David Leger, has been working on the technology with inventor and engineer Mr. Greg Montie B.Eng for over a decade. Greg was a Director on the board for PowerDisc Technology, and has performed lead technical roles at Cummins Westport natural gas engines, dPoint energy recovery systems, and PowerDisc hydrogen fuel cells. During this time, he had invented and filed 10 patents resulting in a number of commercial successes. Invented and developed the patented the eFlow hydrogen fuel cell. Specifically, eFlow is an exponentially delineating hydrogen fuel cell, and is currently considered to have one of the highest specific power outputs and the only substantial fuel cell to claim uniform current density.

In 2005 Inventors Greg Montie, Rodney Bruce Redlich and David Earl Leger  filed patent for Fuel cell cathode flow field  ,Patent number: 7838169  assigned to Power Disc Development Corporation. A fuel cell cathode flow field has multiple channels each with a cross-sectional area that varies along the length of the channel such that oxygen availability at every lengthwise position along the channel is kept substantially constant for a given channel length and air stoichiometry ratio. Each channel comprises a flat floor with substantially constant depth and a pair of side walls extending upwardly from the floor; the side walls each taper inwards from channel inlet to outlet with a convex curve relative to the channel centreline. Achieving substantially uniform oxygen availability throughout the flow field results in substantially uniform current density throughout the flow field, which is desirable for efficient fuel cell operation and improved performance.

PowerDisc Development Corporation is a fuel cell company based in Vancouver BC with David Leger co- inventor of eFlow Fuel Technology was CEO and President and Dr Sean MacKinnon is Chief Scientist. PowerDisc has also been selected as a participant in the Canadian Technology Accelerator Program (CTA). Sponsored by the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development, and administered by the consular trade commissioner in Colorado, the CTA program is focused on assisting Canadian technology companies to enter the United States marketplace while providing  them with improved access to funding, customers and networks of expertise.

PowerDisc is later renamed as Loop Energy Inc in 2016  to  mark the introduction of the company's zero­emission powertrain for heavy­duty transportation. Cummins is a strategic partner and Loop will supply Cummins with its 30-kilowatt (kW) and 50-kW FC-REX range-extender systems for use in Class 6-8 demonstration trucks. Loop has several demonstration programs underway. One involves retrofitting two Class 8 Peterbilt 579 long-haul trucks with fuel-cell/battery-electric drive system integrator TransPower. Those trucks will haul up to 80,000 pounds of freight throughout the San Diego and Los Angeles regions later this year.  In 2019 company has established a joint venture and non-exclusive license agreement with IN-Power, a leading power electronics supplier to the transport sector in China. In April 2020 Loop Energy, received a purchase order from a leading bus manufacturer in China to support the Nanjing municipal government's objective of replacing its existing 7000-unit battery-electric bus fleet with an improved battery-hydrogen hybrid alternative.

During this journey the firm received several grants in Canada. It was awarded a $7.5 million grant from Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC) to accelerate deployment of the company's new zero-emission powertrain for heavy-duty trucks. Funding under Western Innovation  (WINN) Initiative contributed to commercialize and scale fuel cell range extender for heavy-duty Class 8 trucks and buses beginning in 2018.