Re: [PSUBS-MAILIST] Hydrogen Fuel Cells coming closer for Psubs?

[Ian Roxborough <irox@ix.netcom.com>]

On Thu, 5 Dec 2002 14:29:54 -0600
David Buchner <buchner@wcta.net> wrote:

> Coooool! Can't you get hydrogen cylinders from places that do welding 
> gases? Maybe I imagined that. But it does have to be straight-up 
> hydrogen, not methane or propane (or acetylene?) or other more popular 
> and available fuel, like some ideas I'd heard of. Hm. Like 
> hydrogen-fuelcell cars, that becomes a "they don't sell that around 
> here" type of problem.

I don't think you cold use anything but hydrogen in this model.
Finding H2 might be a big problem,  I know the fuel cell's proton
exchange membrane is sensative to polutants in the hydrogen
and will loose effiency and finally fail with no way to clean
the membrane (it's too fragile).  The web page says you need to
use Fuel Cell grade hydrogen, which is probably very pure, I
don't know, but I would guess wielding shop hydrogen might not
be pure enough.

There is a 'Fuel finder' on the website, the closest to me
is about 50 miles a way.

The website also mensions ventilation systems so they may
be other problems to solve before one could be using in
a Psub.  I might be pretty dangerous to operate one in the
same compartment as a person.  Also I've not found out
how much O2 these things use.

Ian.