PEMFC for aeronautic applications: A review on the durability aspects

• Main Authors: Dyantyi Noluntu, Parsons Adrian, Sita Cordellia, Pasupathi Sivakumar
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: De Gruyter 2017-11-01
• Series: Open Engineering
• Subjects: proton exchange membrane fuel cells; auxiliary power units; aircraft; multifunctional fuel cells; durability; state of health
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1515/eng-2017-0035

Proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFC) not only offer more efficient electrical energy conversion, relative to on-ground/backup turbines but generate by-products useful in aircraft such as heat for ice prevention, deoxygenated air for fire retardation and drinkable water for use on-board. Consequently, several projects (e.g. DLR-H2 Antares and RAPID2000) have successfully tested PEMFC-powered auxiliary unit (APU) for manned/unmanned aircraft. Despite the progress from flying PEMFC-powered small aircraft with 20 kW power output as high as 1 000 m at 100 km/h to 33 kW at 2 558 m, 176 km/h [1, 2, 3], durability and reliability remain key challenges. This review reports on the inadequate understanding of behaviour of PEMFC under aeronautic conditions and the lack of predictive methods conducive for aircraft that provide real-time information on the State of Health of PEMFCs.