A Small Hybrid Power System of Photovoltaic Cell and Sodium Borohydride Hydrolysis-Based Fuel Cell

Abstract

Although the hybrid power system that combines a photovoltaic cell and a lithium-ion battery is increasingly mature and practical, long-lifetime auxiliary power will be still needed in severe weather conditions. A small-volume hydrogen–oxygen fuel cell system based on the hydrolysis of NaBH4 is designed. The fuel cell system contains a tiny hydrogen generator, a hydrogen cleaner, and a small fuel cell stack consisting of three units in series. The relationship between the amount of catalyst and output performance is discussed. The long-time discharging results indicate that the fuel cell system has high power capacity. The compact design allows the fuel cell system to integrate the structure with a photovoltaic cell and lithium-ion cell and forms a hybrid power system with a small package. The power management circuit for these power sources without logic devices is designed and tested. The control strategy selects the photovoltaic–battery subsystem as the primary power source, and the fuel cell subsystem works as the backup power source to handle the circumstance when the energy stored in the battery is exhausted. The test results show that the power management system could switch the power supply automatically and timely under various emergency conditions, and the output voltage remains stable all the time.

Output power regulation system for portable micro fuel cell systems

“…DC-DC converters are widely applied in various power systems. In hybrid power systems, buck or buck-boost converters are used to form standard power rails (Li et al, 2021). By converting the voltage of different power harvesters or generators to the same level, power management strategies can be applied.…”

Exploring the technological maturity of hydrogen production by hydrolysis of sodium borohydride

“…These issues were actually rather well identified (as discussed above and in the previous sections). For example, the catalyst deactivation issue is known since many years now and is still reported [109,110].…”

Magnetically Recovered Co and Co@Pt Catalysts Prepared by Galvanic Replacement on Aluminum Powder for Hydrolysis of Sodium Borohydride

“…Catalytic hydrolysis of NaBH 4 (1) is the most studied and is described in a series of review articles [1,6,[11][12][13][14][15][16][17]. On its basis, small-scale hydrogen generators are now being developed [18][19][20][21], including those for unmanned aerial vehicles [20,22,23]. Among the catalysts of this process, special attention is given to cobalt, which combines high activity, abundance, and acceptable prices [1,6,11,12].…”