UCL: Cella Energy opens new facility at NASA's Kennedy Space Center

Cella Energy Ltd is to set up a new facility at NASA's iconic Kennedy Space Center (NASA KSC) as a result of a $2.5million investment led by Space Florida. The investment in Cella's new safe, low-cost hydrogen storage technologies will also enable Cella Energy to set up a facility at Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL) in the UK. The funds will see the number of jobs at Cella Energy more than double.

Cella Energy's technology was developed by researchers at University College London (UCL) in collaboration with scientists from the RAL and the University of Oxford. It provides a cheap, safe and practical way of storing hydrogen, meaning that it is no longer necessary to use high-pressure tanks. Hydrogen, which produces only water when burned, is considered an ideal solution to cutting carbon emissions from road vehicles, the source of 25 per cent of the carbon released in countries like the USA and the UK.

The investment led by Space Florida has been secured just eight months after Cella was founded, and follows an initial investment from Thomas Swan & Co Ltd, a specialist UK chemical company established in 1926.