The US Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) is collaborating with Oorja Protonics, a developer and manufacturer of direct
methanol fuel cell technology (earlier post) on a two - year project to deploy and demonstrate methanol fuel cells for power pallet jacks in four commercial wholesale distribution centers.
Some of the other projects involve the development of proton exchange membrane for
fuel cell application, a gyroscope based on micro-electromechanical
technology and research on innovative engineering materials to fabricate ceramic membranes that can partially oxidize methane to syngas used as feedstock in commercial
methanol production.