CMR Fuel Cells

A CIPA case study

Revolutionary fuel cells set to provide uninterrupted power supplies for laptop computers.

Laptop computers could soon be powered by an ultra compact, highly efficient patented alternative to rechargeable batteries, developed by Cambridge-based CMR Fuel Cells plc. Instead of having to switch your laptop off and find somewhere to plug it into a power supply to recharge the battery, you’ll be able to carry on working. When the tiny cartridge of methanol fuel runs out, you’ll simply slot another one into the onboard fuel cell unit – just like putting a refill in your pen.

CMR engineers are working on prototypes that promise to be much smaller, lighter, cheaper and more efficient than conventional fuel cells or today’s lithium ion batteries. The company has collaborative agreements to adapt the technology for major PC and laptop manufacturers in Korea and Japan and expects the technology to become available in mass market products from 2010.

In coming up with a design that hadn’t previously been thought of, CMR’s founders trawled through 20,000 patents and academic papers – some dating back over half a century. Working with Cambridge-based Nash Matthews, CMR is now building a portfolio of its own patents which will give it exclusive rights to its novel technology in the company’s priority markets, globally.

Fuel cells have been around since British scientist William Grove published the first paper describing a hydrogen-oxygen platinum fuel cell in 1839, although it took until the 1960s for them to become a practicable proposition. Like batteries, they deliver a constant electrical current, but differ from batteries in that they produce electricity from external supplies of fuel (on the anode side) and oxidant (on the cathode side). Chemical energy is converted directly and very efficiently to electricity. Fuel cells can operate virtually continuously as long as the necessary flows are maintained. Their big advantages are high efficiency, silent operation and low emissions. Until now, the main challenges for fuel cells have been their high cost and low performance. They use expensive precious metal catalysts and have much lower power densities than conventional engines.

Eureka fortnight

Michael Priestnall, who later became CMR’s Chief Technology Officer, came up with the idea for a better, small fuel cell as a result of explaining to his colleague, Mike Evans, at Cambridge consultancy Sagentia (then called Scientific Generics) why fuel cells had to be so bulky. “It wasn’t so much a eureka moment as a eureka week or two,” Michael explains. “Over a coffee, I’d been answering Mike’s question about the differences between car engines and fuel cells, and why the fuel cell principle depended on keeping the fuel intake totally separate from the oxidant intake. It occurred to me that if you could find an alternative to the normal catalyst – platinum, which is used on both sides of a fuel cell – you could select a specific catalyst for each of the anode and cathode of the fuel cell, and that would mean you would no longer need to keep the fuel and air separate. We realised this could enable two important things – one was to increase power density by doing away with a large part of the separator mouldings that dominate the volume and weight of a conventional fuel cell stack; the other was to allow platinum to be replaced with much cheaper alternatives.”

Once the implications of his eureka fortnight had sunk in, Michael set about investigating the feasibility of his idea. His first task was to check that his idea was definitely new. His trawl of 20,000 patents and other documents – helped by a software tool called Aurigin – narrowed the field down to some 35 patents and papers that merited further investigation. From this, it appeared that there was a real opportunity to come up with something new and also – critically important – achieve patent protection for it.

Competitive confidence

“We needed to be very confident about our IP position,” Michael Priestnall explains. “Our patents are very fundamental in the fuel cells market. We now have patents granted in China and Australia and expect to have them soon in the USA and, eventually, Europe. For a small company, patent prosecution can be a complex and costly process. We know our technology and the prior art inside out but our patent attorneys are also experts and we work closely with them to achieve the protection we need, without it costing the earth.”

The initial work took place while the fuel cells group was still part of Sagentia. In January 2004, the unit was spun out as CMR (Compact Mixed Reactant), with Michael Priestnall and Michael Evans as its first directors. The company attracted funding from The Carbon Trust and specialist venture fund Conduit Ventures.

With its own premises (next door to Sagentia) and a top-notch research team, CMR was making rapid progress towards having a commercially viable technology. So much so that it opened its capital to the markets and floated on London’s Alternative Investment Market in December 2005. “Being listed means that all aspects of our business are now much more in the public domain,” says Michael Priestnall. “We need to be particularly vigilant about our IP and now work with two top firms of patent attorneys – Morgan Lewis in the USA and Nash Matthews here in the UK. Their expertise is invaluable when it comes to dealing with patent offices in different parts of the world.”

Although laptop computers will be the first mass-market application for CMR’s compact fuel cells, other potential customers are interested in low cost fuel cells that can operate on high energy fuels. According to Martin Lipscombe, patent attorney at Nash Matthews, CMR’s strong IP position will allow them to exploit other markets and use fuels other than methanol. “The core concepts that CMR have patented can apply to any fuel cell. If CMR don’t want to enter other markets themselves at this stage, they could generate good revenue streams from licensing their technology to other manufacturers for applications such as mobile phones, standby power units or even automotive – electric scooters, for example.”

For more information, contact:

Peter Prowse, CIPA : 01372 271234

Ted Blake, CIPA: 020 7405 9450

Mike Evans, CMR Fuel Cells: 01223 875295 

Martin Lipscombe, Nash Matthews: 01223 355477