Spinning-out a fuel cell company from a UK University - 2 years of progress at Ceres Power

Ceres Power Ltd (Ceres Power) has been spun-out from Imperial College London (Imperial) after more than 10 years fundamental research. The studies have shown that is possible to combine ceramic materials, based around doped cerium oxide, with stainless-steel to produce a robust intermediate temperature solid oxide fuel cell (IT-SOFC) capable of operating at 500-600 degreesC. Ceres Power has been formed to exploit this technology commercially. This paper first briefly reviews the process of forming the Company and raising finance. It then discusses the unique technology platform that is being developed by Ceres Power and summarises some of the technical highlights to date. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.