Development of Cost-Effective Solid-State Hydrogen Storage for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles and Demonstration of Prototype Integrated with Fuel Cell

Abstract The modern wars have shown that improved acquisition and rapid dissemination of intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance information are important for successful military missions. Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have recently been receiving great attention not only in such military missions but also in remote sensing platform for research and commercial missions. In the proposed research, we will select appropriate additives to enhance the performance of dehydrogenation of sodium borohydride (NaBH4, SBH) as hydrogen source that has the best potential to meet the UAVs’ requirements for gravimetric and volumetric hydrogen densities while providing acceptable operational safety and controllability; high hydrogen purity; long shelf life with minimal transportation hazard; and environmentally safe disposal of spent materials. Hydrogen generator designs will then be developed utilizing SBH with the selected additive for a prototype of UAV integrated with PEM fuel cell. Further, systematic calculations to identify key factors that influence hydrogen capacity and generator weight, and size will be conducted to optimize system design and material of hydrogen generator.