Prototype image of the portable micro solid oxide fuel cell being developed by Professor Suk Won Cha's Team.

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SNU Professor Suk Won Cha's Portable Solid Oxide Fuel Cell

The hydrogen fuel cell, which creates energy by fusing hydrogen and oxygen in the air is gaining hopes to be the humanity's next energy platform after fossil fuels.

In the industrial setting, companies such as POSCO is already operating high temperature fuel cell facilities and early this year, Hyundai announced the world's first production of the fuel cell car, paving way for the hydrogen economic age.

Professor Suk Won Cha (Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering) is currently awaiting the release of a fuel cell prototype that can be used in daily life, following his development of fuel cells for cars and factories.

The research team is currently pushing for the production and release of portable 15 W power systems and thin film micro solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) power banks for notebooks and tablet PCs, which can be used for up to 5 times longer than traditional power banks.

Water is discharged in the form of vapor.

SOFC has a high operating temperature, which showed problems with safety and the stability of the materials but the research team developed then in the form of thin film micro SOFCs which greatly reduces the operating temperature and can be used in various different situations.

It also has the advantage of being engaged quickly and discharging heat quickly as well.

Professor Cha said "Current lithium ion batteries being used as power for portable electronic devices has reached its limits in terms of energy density and charging time and cannot satisfy the needs as a power source for consumers. As a replacement for this, portable fuel cells will be able to bring immense technological impact from both the 1^st and 2ns stage power sources..."

Micro fuel cells bring along big competition as well with Google, Apple and other global IT companies and world뭩 leading colleges developing them as well.

Professor Cha has decided to commercialize the GV fuel cell established by a combination of researchers, with MSIP as the key to funding this program with their research result commercialization support program.

He plans to release prototypes by next year and release actual products by 2015.

Through technological advancement, he expects the product to form a new market in the power bank industry.

Professor Cha added, "The market that could not be created due to the limits of past power technologies can be opened through this technology."

Article: http://www.dt.co.kr/contents.html?article_no=2013100102011576650002