The Use of a Small Single Fuel Cell to Feed a 10-H Superconducting Coil

In this paper, we propose to replace the usual dedicated electronic power supplies of superconducting coil, which are in most cases a huge volume and/or a low energy yield, by a 100 cm
²
single proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC). Indeed, fuel cells are electrochemical converters that can be considered as dc low-voltage electrical source. Preliminary investigations led with a single PEMFC could evidence the behavior as a dc current source, in which the current is directly controlled by the hydrogen flow rate. In a first step, we highlighted the feasibility by supplying a small superconducting coil, with an inductance value of 4 mH by means of a single PEMFC and proved that dedicated power source can be replaced by fuel cell. The second step is to feed a superconducting coil with higher inductance, 10 H, as presented in this paper.