Fuel Processor Development for Miniature Power Supplies to Power Microdevices

Abstract

Fuel Processor Development for Miniature Power Supplies to Power Microdevices

Jamie D Holladay (speaker) Battelle NW P.O. Box 999/MS K2-12 Richland, WA 99352 Phone: 509-375-6717 Fax: 509-372-4732 Email: jamelyn.holladay@pnl.gov	Evan O Jones Battelle NW P.O. Box 999/MS K8-93 Richland, WA 99352 Phone: 509-376-4610 Fax: 509-376-5106 Email: eo_jones@pnl.gov
Max R Phelps Battelle NW P.O. Box 999/MS K2-12 Richland, WA 99352 Phone: 509-375-6678 Fax: 509-372-4732 Email: mr_phelps@pnl.gov	Jianli Hu Battelle NW P.O. Box 999/MS K8-93 Richland, WA 99352 Phone: 509-376-0427 Fax: 509-376-5106 Email: Jianli.Hu@pnl.gov

The remarkable advances in wireless microdevices (e.g., microsensors and microelectromechanical systems, MEMS) have fueled a need for high-energy, small volume power supplies. Battelle, Pacific Northwest Division (Battelle) and Case Western Reserve University (CWRU), under a program for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, are taking the lead in developing and demonstrating a novel power source consisting of an integrated fuel cell and fuel processor for microscale (10- to 100-mW_e ) power generation. Battelle has taken the task of developing a miniature fuel processor, while CWRU is developing a miniature fuel cell. Battelle's microchannel fuel processor technology, using methanol as the fuel, is a natural fit to microscale power. This technology has the potential to be able to provide a miniature power supply with methanol as the fuel (theoretical maximum of 5.6 kW1-hr kg-1) that offers several times the projected energy density of lithium polymer batteries (0.3 kW_e -hr kg-1). The fuel processor consists of 2 vaporizers, a catalytic combustor, a heat exchanger, and a steam reformer. The steam reformer reactor volume is less than 5 mm3 and the integrated reformer system is less than 0.5 cm3. The steam reformer catalyst testing achieved near maximum theoretical conversions for methanol with approximately 1 vol.% CO in the reformat and over 95% hydrogen selectivity. This paper will focus on current status of the micro-fuel processor and development of the complete power supply.

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