Applications and development of high pressure PEM systems
Many portable fuel cell applications require high pressure hydrogen, oxygen, or both. High pressure PEM systems that were originally designed and developed primarily for aerospace applications are being redesigned for use in portable applications. Historically, applications can be broken into weight sensitive and weight insensitive cell stack designs. Variants of the weight sensitive designs have been considered to refill oxygen bottles for space suits, to provide oxygen for space shuttle, to provide oxygen and/or reboost propellants to the space station, and to recharge oxygen bottles for commercial aviation. A long operating history has been generated for weight insensitive designs that serve as oxygen generators for submarines. Exciting future vehicle concepts and portable applications are enabled by carefully designing lightweight stacks which do not require additional pressure containment. These include high altitude long endurance solar rechargeable aircraft and airships, water refuelable spacecraft, and a variety of field portable systems. High pressure electrolyzers can refill compressed hydrogen storage tanks for fuel cell powered vehicles or portable fuel cells. Hamilton Standard has demonstrated many high pressure PEM water electrolyzer designs for a variety of applications. Electrolyzers with operational pressures up to 3000 psi (20.7 MPa) are currently used for US Navy submarine oxygen generators. An aerospace version has been demonstrated in the Integrated Propulsion Test Article (IPTA) program. Electrolyzers with operational pressures up to 6000 psi (41.4 MPa) have also been demonstrated in the High Pressure Oxygen Recharge System (HPORS). Onboard oxygen generator systems (OBOGS) that generate up to 2000 psi (13.8 MPa) oxygen and refill breathable oxygen tanks for commercial aviation have been designed and successfully demonstrated. Other hardware applications that require high pressure PEM devices are related to these proven applications.
- Research Organization:
- Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Defense Programs (DP) (US)
- DOE Contract Number:
- W-7405-ENG-48
- OSTI ID:
- 9866
- Report Number(s):
- UCRL-JC-134539; YN0100000; YN0100000; TRN: AH200125%%78
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: Portable Fuel Cells Conference, Lucerne (CH), 06/21/1999--06/24/1999; Other Information: PBD: 1 Jun 1999
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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