Transportation (PEM)
Design and engineering of PEM fuel cell stacks offers an attractive horizontal integration strategy for NDCPower chemical engineering competencies. NDCPower offers two types of PEM fuel cells.
Yosemite PEM Fuel Cell Stacks
NDCPower's 2.5kW Standard Design Yosemite Module
NDCPower offers PEM fuel cell stacks based on our innovative Yosemite designs.
Yosemite stacks offer intermediate to low pressure operation with self-humidified gas streams to greatly simplify the balance of plant (BOP) requirements for a fuel cell power system. Air, hydrogen, and water streams are introduced through external manifolds to further simplify stack design and lower manufacturing costs.
Yosemite stacks are available in power increments ranging from less than 1kW to over 15kW, depending on customer needs. Stacks are available as individual components or as modules that can be linked together for higher power applications.
The Yosemite line of fuel cell stacks are a rugged product developed in Cheyenne, Wyoming at an altitude of over 1,800 meters. Yosemite stacks can be used for both motive and stationary power applications.
The Yosemite's unique self-humidification design allows users to eliminate an external humidification scheme from the physical plant and lower the pressure at the anode and cathode.
This ability translates into the following cost benefits:
- Lowers the complexity and cost of the physical plant.
- Lower operating risk and extended lifetime.
- Lower initial capital cost and improved commercial competitiveness of end user systems.
- Elimination of the possibility of gas humidification failure (a primary failure mode for conventional hydrogen fuel cell stacks).
- Unitized cell design simplifies manufacturing process and improves yields.
- Significantly lowers cost basis for mass production.
- Simple rebuild process allows viable leasing model for integrated systems.
- Can be designed for very low pressure operation using axial fans.
- Eliminates need for high pressure blower in BOP improving cost/maintenance equation for physical plant.
Self-Humidifying Stack Design |
Conventional Stack Design |
| Self-humidifying stacks eliminate the need for external humidifiers and allow use of low pressure dry gas as feedstocks. Coolant water flow rates are also significantly reduced. The result is a more compact, cost-effective and reliable fuel cell system. | Conventional stack designs require significant physical plant and parasitic load to support external humidification and high pressure operation. For most fuel cell applications this adds unnecessary cost, complexity and reliability issues. |
