Supported and coorganized by UNIDO - ICHET, the international conference "Hydrogen on Islands" took place on October 22. -25. 2008 in Bol, a famous Croatian tourist destination on the island of Brač. Agreeing that islands are natural polygons for demonstration and use of hydrogen technologies especially in conjunction with renewable energy source, participants presented there respective views, works and experiences.
"No hydrogen demonstration project can be implemented without participation of local community", UNIDO-ICHET senior consultant Dr. Frano Barbir insists. "In that respect, information and dialogue starting at the planning stage is essential and followed up with communication and education during and after implementation. It is also important to visualize benefits for the local community and positive effect on employment and environmental protection, thus it is recommended to evaluate hydrogen projects not only from financial aspects but also from other aspects such as security of energy supply, environmental and social issues."
It was noted that Islands with hydrogen installations/communities could qualify as Global IPHE projects and that the key issue of financing can be solved through recourse to EU FP7, UN family of organizations, World Bank, GEF, various foundations, and ESCO models.

ICHET Managing Director Dr.Mustafa Hatipoglu and R&D & Fuel Cells Director Dr. Suha Yazıcı visited TÜBİTAK-MAM on 16th October 2008. After a visit of the energy laboratories during which they could see the institute's 5kW fuel cells, reformers test stations and hybrid vehicles, a possible collaboration between two institutes were discussed at the lunch with attendance of MAM President Önder Yetiş, MAM/Energy Institute Director Assoc. Prof. Dr. Mustafa Tırıs and BOREN President Erk İnger.

ICHET exhibition booth received more than 100 visitors during the General Assembly of the Fuel Cell & Hydrogen Joint Technology Initiative which took place between 13-15 October 2008 in Brussels, Belgium. Organized by the European Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technology Platform (HFP) and attended by leading actors in the hydrogen energy market, this annual event was also for ICHET the opportunity to participate to the launch of the Joint Technology Initiative (JTI) for Fuel Cells & Hydrogen (FCH) and to meet counterparts among the European FCH Community. Presentations and speeches were given during the event about prospect of hydrogen and fuel cell technologies. ICHET Director for Fuel Cell, R&D and Education Dr. Suha Yazıcı made a presentation about involement of ICHET on education. One of the event's highlights was the European Commission's clear positioning in favor of early market opportunities for back-up power and forklift applications. ICHET may partner with others to demonstrate these technologies while getting funding. ICHET also plans to answer JTI call for proposals for Early Market Demonstrations.

Upon invitation by the Mechanical Engineering Department of Uludağ University, ICHET's Managing Director Dr. Mustafa Hatipoğlu held a seminar on "Hydrogen Energy in the World and in Turkey" on 15 October 2008 in Bursa. Possible joint hydrogen projects were also discussed after this conference, which aroused great interest from both instructors and students of the Department.

Following their annual meeting, the members of ICHET scientific committee met with UNIDO Director General Dr Kandeh Yumkella and senior UNIDO officers on 9 October 2008 in UNIDO headquarters in Vienna. As the chair of the UN-Energy group, Dr Yumkella wanted to seize this opportunity to meet with leading experts in the field of hydrogen energy. After a discussion during which all participants expressed their views and concerns, Dr Yumkella challenged ICHET and the Scientific Committee to find out what industry might look like in a post Kyoto world and encouraged the Centre to develop scenarios coupling hydrogen to renewable sources for the next fifteen to twenty years.

Thirty-five students from Turkey, Croatia, Bulgaria, Italy, Hungary, China and South Africa attended the International PEM Summer School 2008 between 14-18 July 2008 in Istanbul. Together with the teachers, total attendance was 47 people. More than 75 applications from Turkey and other countries in Europe and Asia were sent to ICHET Fuel Cell R&D Director Dr. Suha Yazıcı. UNIDO-ICHET fully supported students for accommodations and food for 5 days and also cared for the air fare of one student. According to Dr. Yazıcı, "one reason to keep the number of student small was to engage them in laboratory activities". Two fuel cell test stations were indeed utilized for three days for them to do hands-on experiment.
Organised by the European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), Institute for Energy (IE), in cooperation with UNIDO-ICHET, “Ovidius” University of Constanzain Romania and the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK), the summer school addressed science and fundamentals of material science and electrochemistry applied to fuel cells.
Miri, a PHD Student from the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and Naval Architecture in Zagreb (Croatia), was amongst the students who benefitted from its teachings:
"I really appreciated this summer course. It actually changed my mind about fuel cell and hydrogen technologies. Before visiting your laboratory i had no hands-on experience on fuel cell components. Working with the fuel cell test station and experimenting various settings and parameters definitely gave me a better feeling and understanding on them".
Future editions of this successful event are being considered, with a heightened focus on in-depth experiments.

The United Nations Global Marketplace - UNGM - is the procurement portal of the UN System. It brings together procurement staff from the United Nations and the supplier community. If you are a supplier of goods or services, you can register as potential vendor. While registering on the UN Global Marketplace does not guarantee that your company will be shortlisted to participate in UN tender opportunities, you should be aware that only registered providers will be considered. As a first step in registering as a supplier please fill in the form. An email will then be sent to you providing you with your username and an autogenerated password for logging in to the UNGM site. You will also be provided with a link to the full 13 step registration form, where you can submit all the details of your organisation.

“Environmental concerns, energy security, industrial opportunities, better utilization of platinum reserves… The drivers for hydrogen activities are different for each country” Dr. Frano Barbir reports. It is one of the points that emerged from the panel session on "How Hydrogen Can Contribute to Meeting the Challenges of Climate Change and Energy" that took place on 1 July during the United Nations ECOSOC High-level Segment. Led by Dr. Barbir, this session saw panelists from Turkey, U.S.,Canada, India and South Africa describe hydrogen energy activities in their respective countries. A common feeling was that these activities need to be sped up, but the main concern expressed was fear that technologies might fail to come through on cost. Some of the challenges identified were fuel cell cost and durability, hydrogen storage density and platinum availability. Indeed, this debate exposed the divide between “market driven” versus “policy driven” solutions for the implementation of hydrogen energy technologies.
Besides, it was acknowledged that education is important at all levels and that public acceptance has to go through the involvement of local communities for all demonstration projects.

The International Centre for Hydrogen Energy Technologies was represented by its Scientific Director Dr. I. Engin Türe during the National Energy Days, which took place on 1-3 July in Istanbul.

UNIDO-ICHET Senior Project Engineer Dr. Osman Malik Atanur presented a poster on the Centre's "hydrogen production from lignocellulosics" R&D project during the 4th National Analytical Chemistry Conference that took place on 25-27 June 2008 in Elazığ (East of Turkey).
With as many as 38 oral presentation and 169 poster presentation sessions, the event was attended by most Turkish researcher working on analytical chemistry and chemistry.

Resources

• Interview of Dr. Atanur published in the Çukorova Gap supplement of Hürriyet national daily newspaper (Turkey) on 28 June 2008.
• "Size exclusion chromatography and HPLC analysis of the products of lignocellusosics hydrolyse by catalytic thermal process" (pdf, Turkish)