Fuel Cell Supply Integration and Safety

Presently, infrastructure for the transportation and storage of packaged fuels remains the limiting factor to the widespread use of portable fuel cells. Significant effort is currently underway to test and regulate several packaged fuel options, including concentrated and dilute methanol packages, metal hydride based hydrogen storage systems, and logistics fuels. Although several early portable fuel cell products plan to utilize chemical hydride based hydrogen generators as the fuel, little effort has been focused on this class of packaged fuel. The anticipated widespread adoption of portable fuel cell systems utilizing chemical hydride fuel packages will be delayed unless proper attention is focused on this packaged fuel option. Taking advantage of its experience in developing fuel cell systems utilizing a variety of packaged fuels and the test methodology and package development accomplished during Phase I, Lynntech proposes to implement the test methodology on existing and internally developed chemical hydride based systems as well as expand the environmental testing and development to include complete portable fuel cell systems. This is in an effort to accelerate the development and implementation of technology to safely store, transport, and use chemical hydride based packaged fuel systems for use with portable fuel cell systems.