Novel High-Speed Turbo Compressor With Integrated Inverter for Fuel Cell Air Supply

Fuel cell technology is continuously gaining ground in E-mobility applications. cells require a constant supply of pressurized air, for which high-speed turbo compressors with air bearings are an optimal choice to reduce size, guarantee oil-free operation required the lifetime fuel cell, and increase efficiency. However, inverter driving electric motor compressor does not scale down increasing speed; therefore, other advances achieve overall system low weight. New power electronic topologies (double-bridge voltage sources inverter), cutting edge semiconductor (gallium nitride), multiobjective optimization techniques allow reducing efficiency, improving output current quality return lowering losses motor. This enables electrical, mechanical, thermal integration into housing very compact compressors, thereby size weight by factor two. Furthermore, integrated reduces complexity cost operators savings casing, cables, coolant piping, connectors EMI noise shielding high-frequency currents one housing. Beside its main application supply, advantages gained can also be used boosting handling applications such as advanced exhaust combustion engines. The proposed concept verified 280,000 rpm, 1 kW compressor, targeted Balance Plant (BoP) 5–15 cell. experimental results show that temperature limits on electronics parts kept below limit 90 °C up 55 °C, beside advantage lower cabling effort, efficiency (turbo inverter) increased 5.5% compared without inverter.