SBIR-STTR Award

Presently available portable, 300 watt power source technology is limited to batteries, solar cells and gasoline engines. Gasoline engines suffer from poor efficiency, noise and high maintenance. Today, batteries alone can provide reliable power. While advances in the last 20 years have increased the power densities of batteries, they are still low energy density devices not suitable for prolonged operation. As developments in portable electronic devices and communications progress, there is an increasing need for more compact, light weight sources of electric power. The company, and country, which is successful in filling this need will clearly have an economic and technological edge. Analytic power proposes the development of an advanced,lightweight, ion-exchange hydrogen/air fuel cell stack. The design is based on our 25 watt hydride supplied, fuel cell stacks which are currently being tested at our facility. Analytic power's commercial customers have also recognized the need for the power supply we propose, and have funded its development for several years. The power supplies require improvement in heat and water management to be commercially feasible. Our proposed phase I program will identify an optimum cell structure, stack design, and systems for heat and water management for a phase II prototype.

Analytic Power proposes to develop a six pound, 350 watt, portable fuel cell power supply for the U.S. Army Research Office. Our Phase I work has demonstrated the feasibility of the power supply. In the first three months of the program we built a single cell which exceeded the cell performance requirement, and we constructed a 5 cell substack which demonstrated the weight requirement. The five cell substack is currently under test. The material cost of the proposed approach is about $2600 each. This is not based on speculative "long term, high quantity production" but on the cost of actual parts purchased in Phase I. The cost is about three times the cost of a gel type lead acid battery - which would weigh over 300 lb. The proposed program is focused at environmental and performance testing of twenty fuel cell power supplies, fifteen of which will be delivered to the Army 18 months after contract award. These prototype units will be tested at the Army's Natick Lab. Analytic Power will explore manufacturing methods which will further reduce fuel cell cost and permit their delivery in high quantities. We will also explore the production of an irreversible sodium borohydride hydrogen source.