About MPA-11

Group Profile & Capabilities.... In the News .... A Bit of History .... Learning Center

The Sensors & Electrochemical Devices Group (MPA-11) conducts basic and applied research on electronic and ionic conducting materials, including the development of novel materials characterization approaches. Our research forms a basis for development in device technology and practical application of materials.

Group Profile & Capabilities

Our major projects include research on polymer electrolyte fuel cells and related conducting polymer electrochemical devices, fundamental research on catalysis, electrochemical sensor technology for chemical and biochemical detection, electrochemical applications of high temperature ceramics, acoustic nondestructive testing for chemical and biological agent detection, basic and applied work on organic electronics and electroluminescent polymers, and research on spintronics devices.

We support a suite of capabilities in materials and device development and characterization, including a clean room for device fabrication, which we use extensively in multiple collaborations with industry.

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In the News

Advances in Fuel Cells, the latest LANL Materials Research Highlights
The Fall 2009 Materials Research Highlights focuses on fuel cells and LANL's research program.

Graduating Class of the 4th LANL Fuel Cell Short Course
For three days in early August, LANL's Fuel Cell Team hosted 14 scientists and engineers from industry, national labs, government agencies, and universities in the fourth session of our Fuel Cell Short Course. The intensive workshop included classroom lectures, hands-on lab work, and group assignments.

Fernando Garzon Elected ECS Fellow

Fernando Garzon of MPA-11 was elected a Fellow of the Electrochemical Society (ECS), in recognition of his “key contributions to the understanding of electrochemical systems including proton exchange membrane fuel cells and high temperature electrochemical sensors; for applying this knowledge to develop robust sensors; and for his dedicated service to ECS.”

Garzon, who earned his PhD in materials science and engineering from the University of Pennsylvania, is the Materials Chemistry Team Leader in the Sensors & Electrochemical Materials Devices Group (MPA-11). He has co-authored more than 100 peer-reviewed scientific publications, with more than 1,200 citations, and made numerous invited conference presentations. Research highlights include the first experimental determination of the thermodynamic metastability of high temperature superconductors (published in the journal Science), the development of very low surface resistance superconductor thin films for microwave applications, the invention of non-porous ceramic hydrogen separation membranes, and the development of sulfur tolerant solid oxide fuel cells. He is also the co-inventor of an R&D 100 award-winning high temperature, combustion control sensor currently being licensed to industry and a new class of solid state gas sensors. He holds seven patents in electrochemical technology and has two more pending.

Garzon also serves on the ECS Board of Directors, is the past chairman of the High Temperature Materials Division of ECS, and is a member of the International Society for Solid State Ionics and the American Ceramics Society.

The ECS Fellowship was established in 1989 to honor individual contributions and leadership in the achievement of science and technology in the area of electrochemistry and solid-state sciences and current active participation in ECS affairs. The number of active Society Fellows does not exceed 3% of the total membership of the Society. Fellows are appointed at a rate of 0.15% per year. The ECS is as an international nonprofit, educational organization concerned with a broad range of phenomena relating to electrochemical and solid-state science and technology. The Society has approximately 9,000 scientists and engineers in more than 70 countries worldwide who hold individual membership, as well as roughly 100 corporations and laboratories that hold corporate membership.

For more MPA-11 News, see In the News Archives

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A Bit of History - LANL and PEM Fuel Cells

It began with a Buick
By Todd Hanson, LANL
October 6, 2005

The Laboratory’s role in the development of hydrogen as an energy source began with research on its use as a transportation fuel. Utilizing expertise gained from Project Rover, a Laboratory program aimed at developing a nuclear powered rocket, Laboratory scientists in the mid-1970s converted a Buick passenger car and a pickup truck to run on hydrogen by modifying the vehicles’ internal combustion engines and storing liquid hydrogen on-board in cryogenic dewars.

By 1977, Laboratory researchers had converted a golf cart to utilize a hydrogen-oxygen phosphoric acid fuel cell for electrical power. That same year, the newly established Department of Energy awarded the first Fuel Cells for Transportation program to the then-Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory. This early work, coupled with a litany of successes along the way, has made Los Alamos fuel cell research one of the longest running non-defense programs at the Laboratory.

Based on this 28-year course of research, the Laboratory holds several seminal patents required by fuel cell product developers. One of the breakthrough technologies was the development in the late 1980s and early 1990s of the thin-film, low platinum electrode for the polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) fuel cell. This innovation dramatically lowered the required amount of precious platinum metal catalyst by a factor of more than 20, while simultaneously improving performance. Fuel cell manufacturers worldwide currently use this PEM approach.

Another Los Alamos innovation was a dramatically improved tolerance to hydrogen impurities, which enabled low temperature PEM fuel cells to operate not only with pure hydrogen, but also with hydrogen-rich gas streams derived from hydrocarbon fuels like gasoline, methanol, propane and natural gas.

From the beginning, Los Alamos researchers have worked closely with industry. The formal establishment of the Los Alamos/General Motors Joint Development Center in 1991 was an effort funded by General Motors and the DOE that focused on development of the electrochemical engine — a PEM fuel cell-power system fueled by methanol converted on demand to a hydrogen-rich gas.

In 2003, the program direction shifted with the focus on PEM fuel cells running on pure hydrogen stored onboard the vehicle. This change in emphasis, embodied in President Bush’s Freedom Cooperative Automotive Research and Fuel Initiative, resulted from a desire to minimize the country’s dependence on imported oil while minimizing the environmental impacts of transportation. Storing enough hydrogen onboard a vehicle to enable a 350-mile driving range has since been declared a “grand challenge.” In April 2004, a Los Alamos-led collaboration focusing on chemical hydrogen storage was awarded one of three DOE Hydrogen Storage Centers of Excellence.

Although the bulk of the Laboratory’s funding for fuel cell research comes from transportation programs, fuel cells are inherently scalable, which means they can be used to power things on a range of scales from portable electronics to homes. A fuel cell sitting beside a home, using reformed natural gas or propane, would provide not only electricity, but also waste heat that could be captured and used for home heating and hot water production.

Today, the Laboratory’s fuel cell program is working in various areas that range from attempts to extend the operating lives of fuel cell membranes to the development of low cost catalysts. For a program that began with a Buick, the technology has come along way.

History of Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Research at Los Alamos

Click on the thumbnail image above for a timeline detailing the important events in hydrogen and fuel cell research at Los Alamos, including photos of some of the earliest hydrogen vehicles.

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Learning Center

Hydrogen and Fuel Cells

Fuel cell animation

The History of Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Research at Los Alamos

Fuel Cells Green Power brochure (1.0MB pdf, Adobe Acrobat required)

Sensors & Micromanipulation Technology

"Sound Solutions for Safety, Health, and Security" describes the versatility of our sensors research.

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