About Frech

A battery – in a car, a radio or watch – converts chemicals stored inside it into electricity. Similarly, a fuel cell converts hydrogen and oxygen into water and, in the process, produces electricity, providing an efficient and environmentally friendly energy source with a multitude of potential applications.

Roger Frech, professor of chemistry, and Dan Glatzhofer, associate professor of chemistry, are developing new materials that will make both batteries and fuel cells work even better.

“There is a need for materials that are both strong and flexible that will separate energy sources and allow ions to move through the membrane of the battery and fuel cell,” explains Glatzhofer. “These are critical properties that primarily determine how well the fuel cell or battery functions, and these are properties that we can control.”

Synthesizing polymer membranes and controlling their properties enables Frech and Glatzhofer to create materials that range from one that is flexible and rubber band-like to one that is so tough it could drive a nail. This degree of control, they say, is unavailable with current technologies. In everyday life, the materials would improve the quality and efficiency of such battery- and fuel cell-operated devices as cell phones and hybrid vehicles.