Argonne National Laboratory (ANL)

ANL is developing a new hybrid fuel cell technology that could generate both electricity and liquid fuels from natural gas. Existing fuel cell technologies typically convert chemical energy from hydrogen into electricity during a chemical reaction with oxygen or some other agent. In addition to generating electricity from hydrogen, ANL’s fuel cell would produce ethylene—a liquid fuel precursor—from natural gas. In this design, a methane-coupling catalyst is added to the anode side of a fuel cell that, when fed with natural gas, creates a chemical reaction that produces ethylene and utilizes leftover hydrogen, which is then passed through a proton-conducting membrane to generate electricity. Removing hydrogen from the reaction site leads to increased conversion of natural gas to ethylene.

If successful, ANL’s hybrid fuel cell will double the efficiency of the system relative to existing technologies, reduce the manufacturing cost from roughly $4000/kw to $1500-2000/kw, and create a small, modular way to produce ethylene.