DuPont, German company win lightweight battery contest

The partnership of DuPont and SFC Smart Fuel Cells AG of Germany won a Defense Department competition on Saturday to develop an ultralightweight portable battery that ground troops could use to power high-tech devices they need in battle.

Comment on this article in The Forum.The team, which took home a $1 million prize, adapted SFC's commercial methanol-based fuel cell that is used to provide power for recreational vehicles to meet the requirements Defense had set for the competition. The team reduced the size of its fuel cell by more than half, down to a package that was not much bigger than a box for a fancy ink pen, which can easily fit into a military field vest, said team leader Mark Baunchalk.

The fuel cell was used to charge a battery, whose weight was included in the overall entry to power a variety of devices in the field test.

Defense held the Wearable Power Prize contest, which attracted 170 teams when it was first launched in July 2007, to find a lighter source of power to operate a range of devices today's troops must now carry into the field, including radios, Global Positioning System gear, receivers and small computers. For a soldier in a forward air control or SEAL team, for example, the weight of the batteries alone can be between 20 to 40 pounds for a four-day mission. Defense wanted the contestants to develop power sources that weighed 8.8 pounds and produced an average of 20 watts of power during a 96-hour period. The field of competitors was winnowed down to 20 teams, which competed last week at the Marine Corps Ground Combat Center in Twentynine Palms, Calif.

Six finalists remained by the start of the four-hour field test on Saturday, which included tests on how long the batteries could deliver power to tactical radios, medical ventilators, a compressor used to inflate a raft and heated gloves, said Aaron Crumm, chief visionary officer of Adaptive Materials Inc., based in Pittsfield Township, Mich., which came in second place. Every team was still producing power at the end of the test from the same power source it had started the competition with, which included a 92-hour test with the equipment mounted on dummies and powering an electronic test load.

"All the teams that competed have moved wearable power technology forward," said William Rees Jr., deputy undersecretary for Defense for laboratories and basic sciences. "Many of the components and systems tested during this demanding competition show great promise to reduce the weight of batteries our ground forces have to carry while performing their critical missions."

Adaptive Materials won $500,000 for second place and the team of Capitol Connections LLC of Middleburg, Va., and a second group from SFC Smart Fuel Cell took the third-place prize of $250,000, said Cmdr. Darryn James, a Pentagon spokesman.

Adaptive Materials' entry used a propane-based fuel cell to charge a battery that weighed 8.34 pounds and generated power equivalent to seven military BA 5590 batteries, which weigh 2.25 pounds each or just under 16 pounds, Crumm said.

Adaptive Materials, which has 65 employees, has contracts to produce fuel-based power systems for military radios and hand-launched unmanned aerial vehicles.

Baunchalk said DuPont intends to put its award winning system into production for military users.