Long endurance underwater power system. Quarterly report, April-June 1989

Technical Report · Fri Aug 04 00:00:00 EDT 1989

OSTI ID:5453562

As part of DARPA's 'Artificial Gill' program, Aquanautics is developing an underwater power source that uses an ambient-pressure solid-polymer-electrolyte (SPE) hydrogen/oxygen fuel cell with an artificial gill that extracts dissolved oxygen from seawater and an Alwatt aluminum corrosion cell that generates the hydrogen. The innovation in this concept is a direct-carrier-feed fuel-cell (CFFC) process that allows the fuel cell to operate at ambient pressure without a costly deep water pressure vessel. Activities during this quarter include: (1) Direct feed of oxygen carrier into fuel cell. New batches of electrodes have been ordered. These are with a different ion-exchange membrane called Nafion (manufactured by Dupont) as against Raipore (mfd. by RAI Research). There was some concern that hydrogen at high pressures would leak out through the membrane which led us to calculate the hydrogen leakage; it appears that at 6000 m, the loss will be around 20%. (2) Gill. Eight rectangular membrane cartridges were ordered. The factors varied were type of membrane (solid vs. microporous) and fiber-to-fiber distance. Theoretical study for sizing of the gill and pumping power required was carried out. (3) Integration of the gill and fuel cell was carried out where oxygen extracted from synthetic ocean water was used in the fuel cell. There was no unforeseen problem. (4) Hydrogen generation. An Alwatt battery was obtained and tested. Testing indicated that the Alwatt battery will produce the expected power and hydrogen for the CFFC process.

• Research Organization: Aquanautics Corp., Alameda, CA (USA)
• OSTI ID: 5453562
• Report Number(s): AD-A-211386/8/XAB
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

30 DIRECT ENERGY CONVERSION
25 ENERGY STORAGE
HYDROGEN FUEL CELLS
OPERATION
SOLID ELECTROLYTES
ALUMINIUM
CORROSION
DISSOLVED GASES
ELECTRIC BATTERIES
ELECTRODES
ELECTROLYTIC CELLS
FIBERS
ION EXCHANGE
LEAKS
MEMBRANES
OXYGEN
POLYMERS
POWER SUPPLIES
PROGRESS REPORT
PUMPING
SEAWATER
UNDERWATER OPERATIONS
CHEMICAL REACTIONS
DIRECT ENERGY CONVERTERS
DOCUMENT TYPES
ELECTROCHEMICAL CELLS
ELECTROLYTES
ELECTRONIC EQUIPMENT
ELEMENTS
EQUIPMENT
FLUIDS
FUEL CELLS
GASES
HYDROGEN COMPOUNDS
METALS
NONMETALS
OXYGEN COMPOUNDS
SOLUTES
WATER
300501* - Fuel Cells- Design & Development
250902 - Energy Storage- Batteries- Performance & Testing