Potenza Technology worked as a partner organisation on a DTi funded LINK programme with Johnson Matthey, Eminox Ltd., Energy Technology Services and Reading University. The project aim was to produce a small 5kW catalyst reformer capable of converting unleaded petrol into Hydrogen for fuel cell applications. A principle application of such a technology is predicted to be an auxiliary power unit for automobiles to cope with power requirements of current and future anciliary equipment e.g. airconditioning, in vehicle entertainment.

We contributed to the project through the design, development and implementation of the complete electrical and control system for the prototype reformer. This work included an embedded controller, based on the Siemens C167 platform with bespoke hardware circuitry providing 24 thermocouple inputs, and a further 13 miscellaneous analogue inputs, 8 analogue/PWM outputs, and 20 opto-isolated digital I/O channels. The controller can be tuned on-line via an RS232 serial link to a bespoke Visual Basic front end application (see screen shot below).