Future Fuel Research At Sherbrooke

In 1980, two scientists at l'Université de Sherbrooke began research on hydrogen. This was not any ordinary reserach, however. Dr. Frank Kimmerle and Dr. Jean Lessard were working on a way to store hydrogen and electrical energy in an "organic hydride". The products of combustion of hydrogen (in combustion engines and air-hydrogen fuel cells) are water and energy. This means that hydrogen is a very clean source of energy.

Today the electrochemistry group at Sherbrooke is make up of six faculty members (Gessie Brisard, Pierre Harvey, Gregory Jerkiewicz, Andrej Lasia (head of group), Jean Lessard, and Hughes Ménard) and two adjunct professors, Louis Brossard from l'Institut de recherche en électricité d'Hydro-Québec and Jean Marc Lalancette from Inotel Incorporated, Sherbrooke. The research group also includes 25 other researches (postdoctoral fellows and graduated students).

Presently the research group is working on developing new electrode materials that are cheap, efficient and long-lived for the production of hydrogen by water electrolysis, and the combustion of hydrogen in air-hydrogen fuel cells. They also study the electrocatalytic hygrogenation of organic compounds and carbon dioxide. The group is also focusing on the characterization of these metals and the mechanism of the electrochemical process (i.e. what goes on between the atoms and molecules in the electrochemical reaction).

This research on production of hydrogen by electrochemical processes may some day change the use of fuels. The ability to produce energy without harming our environmnet would be of great benefit to us all.