Hawaii Energy and Environmental Technologies (HEET) Initiative

This report covers efforts by the Hawaii Natural Energy Institute of the University of Hawaii under the ONR-funded HEET Initiative that addresses critical technology needs for exploration/utilization of seabed methane hydrates and development/testing of advanced fuel cells and fuel cell systems. Methane hydrates work included: hydrate thermochemistry and kinetics; environmental impacts of methane release from seafloor hydrates; hydrate engineering applications; and international collaborative R&D. In the fuel cell area, accomplishments included: addition of three fuel cell test stands to the Hawaii Fuel Cell Test Facility; modifications to allow stack testing; study of performance impacts of contaminants in anode and cathode feed streams; and upgrading of the dynamic HiL test stand and associated simulation. For the hydrogen production area, efforts were focused on sulfur removal from fuel gas plus reforming activities that included testing with a catalytic autothermal reformer and two different plasma arc reactors. Further work was also carried out with novel fuel cell concepts including biocarbons and bio-fuel cells. The original document contains color images. All DTIC reproductions will be in black and white.