SHIMSHON GOTTESFELD

Adjunct Professor

About SHIMSON GOTTESFELD

Dr. Gottesfeld is Adjunct Professor of Chemical Engineering at the University of Delaware. He has 27 years of experience in leading fuel cell technology projects, resulting in world wide recognized contributions to the science and state of the art polymer electrolyte and direct methanol fuel cells. He is considered one of the leading pioneers in this area worldwide with a substantial fraction of his effort devoted to electrocatalysis. The list of seminal contributions to the area of fuel cell science and technology, includes extensively quoted papers on water distribution and water mangement in PEM fuel cells, papers and patent on achieving CO tolerance in PEM fuel cells using air bleed upstream the anode inlet, operation of a direct methanol, polymer electrolyte fuel cell on neat methanol feed while achieving high fuel utilization and, most recently, novel catalysts and catalyst layers for alkaline membrane fuel cells (AMFCs) and a mode of AMFC operation securing high fuel utilization. Dr. Gottesfeld has been awarded the 2006 Grove Medal for Fuel Cell Science and Technology for his “sustained contribution to fuel cell research and commercialization” and was next awarded the 2008 Fuel Cell Seminar Award.

Dr. Gottesfeld received his D.Sc degree from the Technion, Israel Institute of Technology and was Chemistry Professor at Tel Aviv University in Israel 1972 -1987. He next led the Fuel Cell Research program at Los Alamos National Laboratory for 13 years (1987-2000) and was selected Los Alamos Laboratory Fellow in 1998.

Dr. Gottesfeld is one of the three founders of Cellera, a company established in December of 2007 to develop AMFC technology and products and has served as company CTO. Over the last six years, this company established industry leadership position in AMFC technology. Dr. Gottesfeld has more than 30 US patents granted and several more pending in the area of polymer electrolyte and direct methanol fuel cell technologies. He has published over 150 papers in science&technology journals and several book chapters. He co-initiated in 1999 the series of Gordon Research Conferences (RGC) on Fuel Cells which remains to date a unique forum in this scientific and technical area. He served several times as speaker and chair at the Fuel Cell GRC. Dr. Gottesfeld served as member and Chair of the physical electrochemistry division of the Electrochemical Society and was elected in 1999 as ECS Fellow.