A Portable Fuel Cell System Using Activated Aluminum

Abstract

This paper describes the development of a portable fuel cell (FC) system. This system provides hydrogen to the FC via the reaction of hydrogen generation between activated aluminum particles and water. The developed system includes an FC, a water tank, a pump, a reactor vessel, a storage tank, a pressure sensor, and a controller implemented in a one-chip microcomputer. A PI controller is designed to control the reaction by determining the amount of to be supplied water to the activated aluminum particles in the reactor vessel. The parameters of the control system are determined by trial and error, on the basis of the values obtained by Chien-Hrones-Reswick method. The developed system is confirmed to provide hydrogen to the FC via experiments under many circumstances. Therefore, our proposed system is considered to be useful as a portable FC system.