Power recovery by a twin screw expander in a fuel cell application

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Power recovery by a twin screw expander in a fuel cell application

Oscarsson, J.

The fuel cell engine is being developed to be the future power source for transportation, gradually substituting the internal combustion engine. For transportation both size and weight of components are very important. A common way of reducing size and weight of fuel cell engines is to use pressurized air systems. The stack, heat exchangers, pipes, valves etc. will be reduced in size and weight. There are also other advantages with pressurized systems: the response time when an increase in the power output is required is shortened. Exhausting of the water continuously produced in stack is improved. Pressurized systems need an efficient, small, lightweight compressor. The Twin Screw Compressor meets those requirements. By adding a Twin Screw Expander downstream the stack, 30 - 35 % of the compressor input power can be recovered and tile power output and tile size and weight of tile compressor drive motor reduced accordingly. The paper shows possible improvement of tile performance as well as different ways of integrating tile compressor, tile expander and the drive motor. Drive motors with different max speeds may be used. The drive can be connected to the low or high speed rotor.