Kang P. Lee, Ph.D., CEO and President

Aspen Companies provide two key products/technologies that will be very useful for the Fuel Cell industry: one is the high sulfur diesel fuel reformer from Aspen Products Group, Inc. and the other is flexible aerogel superinsulation from Aspen Aerogels, Inc.

First, a word about the fuel reforming. The Fuel Cell industry has been caught in a conundrum. The Hydrogen infracture necessary for widespread use of Fuel Cell devices may require ~$500 million and 30? Years. Without the Hydrogen infrastructure though, mass introduction of Fuel Cells will not occur especially for mobile applications. Without a large number of Fuel Cell devices as a customer base, who will pay for building the hydrogen infrastructure? Fuel reforming will be an important interim solution to break out of this conundrum and enable massive introduction of Fuel Cell devices using petroleum infrastructure. This will buy us time to further develop better technologies for hydrogen infrastructure. Aspen Products Group has developed a reformer that can handle even high sulfur diesel and already demonstrated its performance and stability for more than 1000 hours of intermittent operation over a 41-day period. Aspen Products Group is teamed up with General Dynamics who will integrate Aspen’s reformer with a third party SOFC to target the military APU (auxiliary power unit) market. Our first public demonstration unit with General Dynamics will be a 5kW APU running on high sulfur diesel for a tractor trailer for Sunline Transit under a National Automotive Center (NAC) project. Aspen’s long-term goal is to provide liquid-fuel reformers to both SOFC and PEM Fuel Cell industries for stationary and mobile applications. Please visit www.fuelreforming.com for more information.

Next, a word about aerogel superinsulation from Aspen Aerogels, Inc. There is a definite need in the Fuel Cell industry to find an effective thermal insulation in order to produce compact envelopes for high temperature components. The thermal insulation industry has not seen much, if any, improvement over the past 30 years, and currently available products are considered inadequate. Aspen started working on an advanced thermal insulation based on aerogels ten years ago, and recently succeeded in developing affordable and practical superinsulation products. Aerogels are a 70-year old technology that are finally coming to the market thanks to Aspen’s twin technical breakthroughs of the flexible product form and a cost effective production process. Aspen’s flexible aerogel products are two to five times better in insulation performance than existing insulation products across a wide range of temperatures and applications. Our first mass-production plant located in Northborough, MA, USA will come on line in May 2003 with a yearly production capacity of 1 million m2 of a 4 mm thick blanket. Please visit www.aerogel.com for more information.

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