06-May-2009

ACAL Energy Achieves New Fuel Cell Milestone

Reaches Key 1,000 Hour Milestones, Sets Higher Targets for 2009

ACAL Energy Ltd. has today announced that its FlowCath® fuel cell system has achieved over
1,000 hours continuous operation with no deterioration of performance. FlowCath® technology replaces the expensive precious metal catalysts found on the cathode side of conventional membrane based fuel cells with cheaper liquid based oxygen reduction catalyst systems. These radically reduce cost at the same time as improving performance. The results were achieved with single cells under carefully monitored conditions and represent a significant milestone in the demonstration of the technology’s development. In addition the company confirms that operation of the complete fuel cell stack and integrated system has now achieved over 100 hours cumulative operation at power levels of nearly 60W, well above its design specification.

These results demonstrate the predicted durability and robustness of the ACAL Energy technology and come alongside earlier announcements of peak power performance over 600mW/cm2.

The FlowCath® technology is designed for proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cells - regarded as one of the most efficient and clean methods of producing energy. Demonstrating long term continuous operation is essential for applications such as residential cogeneration, stationary, and mobile power applications. A critical design feature of the ACAL Energy technology is its inherent ability to address the root causes of the performance failures in conventional systems as well as reduce cost, so these results are a critical step forward in proving the commercial and technical viability of the technology.

These results have prompted the Company to aim for delivery of a 1kW demonstration unit by this summer, and to have 5,000 hrs continuous running data on a single cell - and 2500 hrs on a stack - by this time next year.