Water Vapor Recovery System for Advancement of State of the Art Fuel Cell Technologies through Innovative Component Development

Water recovery (WR) for hydrocarbon fueled fuel cells can increase energy density, by reducing the weight of the fuel mixture by up to 75% depending on the fuel. However, WR systems typically utilize a condenser, which cannot condense sufficient water at ambient temperatures >~40C. Hence in real-world scenarios, water must carried with the fuel adding weight and reducing the energy density advantage promised by fuel cells. UltraCell has developed a design for a novel, ultra compact, water recovery (WR) system for man portable fuel cells, which can operate at high >55C ambient temperatures (WR-HAT), withstand below freezing storage and which is orientation independent. This WR system will be first integrated into UltraCell's GEN II, 20W Reformed Methanol Fuel Cell (RMFC) , and will result in a 3-day energy density of ~800 Whr/Kg, and provide a >30% improvement when compared to the GEN II system without WR. The WR system can also be applied to UltraCell's proven, TRL-7, Mil Spec tested, XX25 man portable to increase its energy density from ~360Whr/Kg to ~485Whr/Kg. The WR-HAT is lightweight so that the GEN-RW will have high energy density even for short missions (~150 & ~280 Whr/Kg for 6 or 12-hr missions.)