Synergy Technologies Corp. says it plans to enter the fuel cell market by “aggressively pursuing joint ventures and strategic partnerships” with major fuel cell and transportation companies that can potentially benefit from a number of applications of the company’s patented and wholly-owned SynGen technology.
The SynGen reactor, or reformer, converts natural gas and other fossil fuels into a synthetic gas composed of hydrogen and carbon monoxide via the use of a cold plasma electrical discharge. This synthetic gas is the feedstock used to produce clean-burning liquid fuels in Gas-to-Liquids (GTL) processes. Synergy’s management believes that its SynGen process can not only significantly reduce the capital and operating costs of GTL plants, but also improve efficiencies in fuel cell technology.
With regard to fuel cell applications, Synergy has recently tested a miniaturised SynGen reformer and found that it may provide the fuel cell industry with substantive advantages over other currently available reformers.
In addition to scalability and energy efficiency, one of the key advantages of Synergy’s reactor technology is the elimination of soot production in the reforming of liquid fuels. Synergy has entered into discussions with fuel cell and transportation companies to evaluate the potential use of the SynGen reformer in fuel cell power generation.