Over approximately 30 years, I have enjoyed interweaving my career with interactions with Bob Savinell. After some initial remarks on that ‘odyssey’ (or is it oddity?), I will discuss recent research in two pathways in which we overlapped: (i) an indirect one devoted to finding fuel cell membranes and systems that operate at temperatures above 100^oC; and (ii) our direct interactions on the BEES EFRC.

Of course, the Savinell group proposed an elegant solution to that with the PBI-PA based fuel cell membrane and that has substantial system advantages for certain modes of operation. However, more mainstream PEM fuel cell membranes operating at T >100^oC and with relatively little water continue to be sought. These are of considerable import because of the possibility that a car or truck will experience temperature excursions in that range. I will summarize the current state of the art of that field and discuss work in our lab that attempts to provide some solutions. I will also discuss our group’s work with a variant, the Solid Acid Fuel Cell, showing some progress achieved toward dramatic decreases in catalyst loading for a fuel cell that operates at roughly 250^oC;.

In BEES, our group has worked on several issues (see other presentations in this symposium and meeting) but much of the focus has been on microemulsions as electrolytes, particularly in the context of redox flow batteries. I will present a brief overview of that work as the most direct and recent example of our collaborations.