Fuel cells are an emerging energy conversion device which offer improved efficiency, low noise and reduced emissions. Imperial College have been asked to evaluate fuel cell system options for autonomous vehicles, and to consider the impact of military relevant fuels on fuel cell performance. Discussions with Rolls-Royce and Dstl have recently agreed two classes of application; fuel cells for au...

Direct alcohol fuel cells have been attracting enormous research interest as power sources for vehicles and portable electronic devices because alcohols are readily available, their storage and transport can be easily handled with the existing fuel infrastructure, and they commonly have high mass-specific and volumetric energy densities. Methanol is the most studied fuel for direct alcohol fuel...

Gas diffusion electrode was used for providing better conditions in fuel cell systems for oxygen reduction reaction (ORR). Because the slow kinetics of the oxygen reduction reaction at the proton exchange membrane fuel cell cathode restricts fuel cell efficiency. To this end, researchers have used platinum-coated carbon. In the present study, due to the reduction of carbon corrosion, Zinc oxide...

This paper addresses the critical need to incorporate realistic models of the air supply sub-system in fuel cell system performance analysis. The paper first presents the dominant performance issues involved with the air supply operation in the fuel cell system. The report then goes on to propose a methodology for an air supply model that addresses many of the performance issues. Most important...

The vehicular fuel cell stack is unavoidably impacted by the vibration and shock in the real-world due to the road unevenness. However, influences of vibration on fuel cell stack have yet to be investigated completely. In this paper, the performance of a fuel cell stack is experimentally studied in terms of gas-tightness, voltage degradation, AC impedance spectra, polarization curve and charact...

The purpose of this study is to determine the optimum intake valve closing time of a large diesel engine having lower fuel consumption and lower NOx emission. The performance simulation has been conducted for this purpose, and a phenomenological combustion model is verified by experimental data of heat release rate and NOx emission in order to enhance the prediction quality of the performance s...

Mobile robots are often needed for long duration missions. These include search rescue, sentry, repair, surveillance and entertainment. Current power supply technology limit walking and climbing robots from many such missions. Internal combustion engines have high noise and emit toxic exhaust while rechargeable batteries have low energy densities and high rates of self-discharge. In theory, fue...

Proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) with a dead-ended anode and cathode can obtain high hydrogen and oxygen utilization by a comparatively simple system. Nevertheless, the accumulation of the water in the anode and cathode channels might cause a local fuel starvation degrading the performance and durability of PEMFCs. In this study, a brand new design for a polymer electrolyte membrane...

This paper studies the impact of fuel-cell (FC) performance and control strategies on the benefits of hybridization. One of the main weak points of the FC is slow dynamics dominated by a temperature and fuel-delivery system. Although many researchers have investigated the use of different powertrain topologies, component sizes, and control strategies in fuel cell vehicles, a detailed parametric...