An analysis of hydrogen production from ammonia hydride hydrogen generators for use in military fuel cell environments

In an effort to simultaneously improve upon existing power storage and generation devices while supplying America’s war fighters with state-of-the-art equipment, the US military has focused on fuel cell technology for several military applications. These applications include soldier and sensor power (0–100 W) and auxiliary power units (500–3000 W). Over the past few years, the fuel cell industry has realized remarkable decreases in the size and weight of proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell systems. However, a safe and affordable means of storing and generating hydrogen does not yet exist to justify their transition into the field. In order to assess the hydrogen storage capacity and hydrogen generation rates of ammonia (NH3) based systems, the US Army Communications-Electronics Research, Development, and Engineering Center (CERDEC), tested several ammonia hydride hydrogen generator systems built by Hydrogen Components Inc. (HCI). Experimental results and analysis illustrate that while there are developments necessary at the sub-system level, the hydrogen generators are ideal energy storage devices for low power (5 W) operations over wide temperature ranges. The results show that the hydrogen generators are capable of operating autonomously for over 50+ h of operation (at a 5 W load) and producing hydrogen delivery system energy densities of 480 Wh/kg.