ACAL Energy Receives Investment From Sumitomo To Develop Platinum-Free Cathode Technology
ACAL Energy Ltd. announced an investment from Sumitomo Corp., a leading Japanese trading company with substantial business activities in energy, mineral and merchandise trading, through its investment arm SC Green Tech Ventures LLC. ACAL Energy develops fuel cell systems, modules and consumable chemicals for a range of uses including stationary, residential and automotive applications requiring larger than 1KW of power.
The investment is in addition to the previously announced €3.3M fundraising round completed at the beginning of December, led by Carbon Trust Investments and Solvay SA. All funds raised will be used to take the company to the next stage of development of their low cost fuel cell systems, based on novel platinum-free cathode technology (FlowCath®).
FlowCath is said to replace the expensive precious metal catalyst found in conventional fuel cells with a proprietary low cost liquid catalyst. This is not only said to reduce the cost of the fuel cell, but also to provide significant durability and reliability benefits through system simplification, and the elimination of the most common failure mechanisms found in standard fuel cells. The company plans to introduce a 1kW demonstration system in 2009.
Chief Executive Officer, Dr SB Cha said, "We are very fortunate to have an investment from Sumitomo Corp. in this very difficult business environment. We look forward to working with Sumitomo Corp. to deliver ACAL products to the Japanese and other Asian markets in the near future. Sumitomo Corp. is the second blue-chip Japanese company to invest in ACAL and since the Japanese Cleantech market is arguably the most advanced in the world, we view the investment as a very strong endorsement of our technology and market potential."
