Introduction in Applications and Technologies The recent fuel cell FC development worldwide has always been accompanied by a number of studies and projects investigating the applications
Trang 1Ships: Fuel Cells
W Winkler,Hamburg University of Applied Sciences, Hamburg, Germany
& 2009 Elsevier B.V All rights reserved.
Introduction in Applications and
Technologies
The recent fuel cell (FC) development worldwide has
always been accompanied by a number of studies and
projects investigating the applications of FCs onboard
ships Almost all possible FC types and different fuels
such as hydrogen, natural gas (liquefied or pressurized),
liquefied pressurized gas (LPG), methanol, and maritime
diesel have been considered These applications of FCs
are still mainly focused on onboard power generation
(OPU) and propulsion The types of ships being
con-sidered vary from sailing and other leisure boats to
fer-ries, naval surface ships, submarines, and special
underwater vehicles such as those used for research or
military applications Although civil utilization of FCs is
gaining increasing importance, the naval developments
are the clear technology drivers The main FC types of
interest are proton-exchange membrane fuel cells
(PEMFC), molten carbonate fuel cells (MCFC), and
solid oxide fuel cells (SOFC).Table 1gives an overview
of the main outlines of FC types, fuels, and applications
that have already been considered
Leisure boats have been the first application of
PEMFC with hydrogen as a fuel Sailing boats have
al-ready been equipped with OPU and motorboats have
been operated with an electric motor driven by a
hydrogen-supplied PEMFC The low power density of
storing hydrogen restricts the hydrogen-fed PEMFC to
applications onboard vessels that operate close to filling
stations, for example, at a harbor This was the main
reason to study and develop hydrogen-supplied harbor
ferries that are required to cover only a short range
The power supply onboard yacht is an interestingentrance market for FCs because the owners are verymuch interested in a silent low-emission power gener-ator Owing to the size of yachts, MCFC and SOFC arepossible candidates Possible fuels are LPG or dieseldepending on the future FC development Similar con-siderations can be made for cruise ships Specifically,those ships that visit sensitive environments such asArctic areas are ideal future FC users The differenttypes of cargo ships have no specific characteristics thatmight allow FCs to find a specific entrance market;however, onboard power generation might be a possiblefirst application
Naval ships need silent and difficult-to-detect powergenerators, and a distributed power system onboard forpropulsion as applicable with FCs may lead to a bettersurvivability Preferred fuels are logistic fuels such asdiesel or kerosene Depending on the mission, LPGmight be acceptable The hydrogen-supplied PEMFC-based propulsion system of submarines is the onlycommercially available FC system worldwide Thecombination of hydrogen storage in metal hydrides withhydrogen-powered PEMFC allows a signature with al-most no waste heat, avoiding an easy detection
The maritime research needs unmanned underwatervehicles (UUV) with an air-independent propulsion(AIP) system; hydrogen-supplied PEMFC has beenchosen in some applications Naval systems with diesel-supplied SOFC are under development In both cases,pure oxygen is used for fuel oxidation
The motivation for using FCs onboard ships has beenalso accompanied by the development of electric ships.For example, the pod drive as a propulsion system hasalready been commercialized The FCs are thus atechnology that matches very well the general trend ofship architecture development because they directlysupply a large amount of electrical power The flexibility
of electric-driven pod systems is an interesting ation for merchant ships as well; however, military ap-plications were promoting electrical applicationsstrongly Figure 1 shows the development from inte-grated power systems onboard ships to all electric shipconcepts Integrated power systems already have anelectric drive and a reduced number of prime moversresulting in fuel savings and reduced maintenance Theall electric ship concept increases automation and re-duces manning; the elimination of separated auxiliarysystems reduces maintenance and saves energy by bettersystem integration
motiv-Table 1 Maritime fuel cells (FCs): types, first applications,
Note: Hydrogen, H2; natural gas, NG; LPG, LP; methanol, ME; maritime
diesel, MD; propulsion, PR; power generation, PG.
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