Research and Development

LC Energy has a significant research alliance with the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) through Dr Andrew Dicks, an international specialist in sustainable energy systems, fuel cell technologies, and fuel processing. Between 2010 and 2013, LC Energy led a project to develop advanced micro-channel reactor technology for reforming diesel into hydrogen for fuel cells and other applications. This project was with QUT and was supported by Queensland Government. More recently Andrew has been carrying out research in oxygen-reduction catalysts using non precious metals for PEM fuel cell in collaboration with QUT and The University of Queensland. Andrew is now leading the development of grid-independent remote power systems at LC supported by a Clean Technology Innovation Program grant.

Facilities

At the Goodna site of LC Energy we have:

• Off-grid solar PV energy system comprising 12 kW of PV panels coupled to 2 SMA sunny-boy inverters and SMA sunny island controller and web-box
• Diesel generator, SMA inverters and solar log hardware
• Battery test facility (Lithium ferrous phosphate, VRLA and sodium nickel chemistries)
• Demountable off-grid research building
• Remote solar monitoring capability, software and servers
• Laboratory scale PEM fuel cell test facility
• Solar PV and energy design software
• SolidWorks
• Technical Library, and access to research articles through the Australian Institute of Energy, Engineers Australia, and the Royal Society of Chemistry

Through arrangements with Brisbane universities we also have access to:

• Advanced microchannel gas processing reactor
• Catalyst test facilities
• Gas analysis, materials testing and characterisation, including x-ray diffraction, XPS and electron microscopy
• Hydrogen gas storage research facilities
• Commercial PEM fuel cell system and electrolyser
• Gas analysis, process analysis and simulation software (Aspentech)