We all know the benefits of fuel cells - more environment-friendly, more efficient...Basically it's every environmentalist's biggest fantasy morphing into life. The only problem with fuel cells are that they are too expensive to be widely-used by the common, middle-class family. Thus, the promise of fuel cells comes at a hefty price tag .

The researchers at Fraunhofer are aiming to change that. They are currently working to make multi-fuel, high temperature ceramic fuel cells affordable on the mass market for use as portable power generators, Professor Alexander Michaelis of the Fraunhofer Institute for Ceramic Technologies and Systems (IKTS) in Dresden added that “ceramic high-temperature fuel cells are ideal as mobile power generators for motor homes, boats, trucks or cars. They also have stationary applications for generating electricity, heating and cooling, or in agriculture for generating energy from biogas.”

What the IKTS people have been developing are cost-effective, long-lasting stacks, the core of a high-temperature fuel cell, suited to commercial applications. Stacks are made up of thin ceramic plates on the surface of which fuels are converted directly into electrical power through an electrochemical process. Why are they developing ceramic cells? Because it has more perks, its polymers could also generate power from methane, gasoline, diesel, natural gas or biogas.

IKTS isn't alone in this gargantuan project. Together with HC Starck, a subsidiary of Bayer, and Webasto, a team at the IKTS is developing composite materials made out of metal, ceramics and glass. These materials are suitable for building low-cost, robust stacks and have already achieved a service life of over 5,000 hours. The new stack design is due to go into series production shortly. So the IKTS guys are keeping the promise of fuel-cells alive.