Internal Combustion Battery (ICB)

The Internal Combustion Battery (ICB) is a new type of fueled-based power source designed for applications in portable electronics. The ICB combusts liquid hydrocarbon fuels to produce heat and generates electrical power by thermoelectric conversion. An initial estimate of the ICB designed for Software Defined Radio (SDR) application shows that a weight reduction of approximately 2.2 times is achievable as compared to Lithium-ion battery. Further design optimization will yield even higher weight savings. The ICB can be configured in two design approaches: a modular design that incorporates miniature COTS components and a chip-scale design that uses planer processing technology. The projected performance of the ICB is about 300 W-hr/Kg (average) or about 2 times higher than the Lithium-ion battery used currently by the Air Force today for the SDR. Increasing the mission duration from 10 hours to 20 hours would lead to a ICB design with 520 W-hr/Kg (average). Due to its small mass, the chip-scale ICB technology would yield energy density over 1000 W-hr/Kg. In the Phase I ISC proposes to develop a baseline ICB system design and conduct detailed designs and analyses of the major components, such as the micro combustor, heat exchanger and thermoelectric generator.