A FUNDAMENTAL STUDY OF THE ALKALINE-MATRIX- TYPE FUEL CELL SYSTEM FOR SPACE VEHICLES* KEN KIKUCHI, TORU OZEKI and YASUNOBU YOSHIDA Nagoya Aircraft Works Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. 10, Oye-cho Minato-ku Nagoya 455, Japan YUKO FUJITA and HITOSHI NAKAMURA Japan Storage Battery Co., Ltd. Nishinosho Kisshoin, Minami-ku Kyoto 601, Japan Abstract — In the future, the alkaline-matrix-type fuel cell system will be promising as a source of electric power for the winged reentry vehicle, the orbital transfer vehicle and the space station, etc. A fundamental test of this alkaline-matrix-type fuel cell system has been carried out by using an experimental five cell stack with an active area of 100 cm2, and an output power of 79 W at 20 A. The operating conditions of the fuel cell system have been established successfully. Now, based upon the results of this fundamental test, a fuel cell system consisting of an improved five cell stack, a reactant supply system and a control unit was fabricated experimentally for a test bed. A functional test of the test bed was carried out by using gaseous hydrogen and gaseous oxygen as reactant and Fluorinert FC-40 as coolant. Gaseous hydrogen and Fluorinert FC-40 were circulated in order to control the dew point of gaseous hydrogen and the operating temperature. Product water in the cell stack was carried away with circulating gaseous hydrogen, and then removed from the hydrogen stream by condensing in a condenser. The operating temperatures of the cell stack and the condenser were kept constant by circulating controlled Fluorinert FC-40. The test bed put out powers of 90 W at 20 A and 147 W at 35 A under an operating pressure of 0.4 MPa. The terminal voltage and the operational parameters of the test bed followed quickly the change of load current. 1. INTRODUCTION As satellites become larger, the solar-array storage-battery combination will be utilized to provide the electric power because of its long life, light weight and high reliability. On the other hand, the alkaline-matrix-type fuel cell system will be promising as a source of electric power for the winged re-entry vehicle and the orbital transfer vehicle. Additionally, the regenerative fuel cell system will be most promising for the power storage system for the future space station. A fundamental test of this alkaline-matrix-type fuel cell system has been carried out by using an experimental five cell stack with an active area of 100 cm2. The ♦Presented at the Fourth ISAS Space Energy Symposium, at ISAS, Tokyo, 1 March 1985.
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