Methanol Fuel Cell Power Source

Energy Research Corporation (ERC) has developed and delivered to the U.S. Army 3kW fuel cell generator sets which operate on diluted methanol fuel. To improve fuel logistics in terms of supply, weight and volume, ERC is also developing fuel cell power plants which run on neat (undiluted) methanol. Design of these generators is based on partial oxidation and internal water recovery concepts. With the water recovery concept, the dilute methanol fuel is obtained on-board by mixing neat methanol with water recovered from fuel cell and reformer exhaust streams. This scheme has been successfully demonstrated at ERC with a 3kW unit, using air-cooled commercial cross-flow heat exchangers. A 3kW power plant incorporating this design feature is under construction for the U.S. Army. ERC has also designed, constructed and tested a fully automatic 5kW neat-methanol power plant with water recovery from cathode and reformer flue exhaust for the U.S Air Force. This power plant has an overall thermal efficiency of 32% (based on LHV) at the rated 5kW load and is intended for remote baseload application.