North Haven, CT (March 25th, 2024) - Precision Combustion, Inc. (PCI) announced today it was awarded an ARPA-E REEACH Phase 2 project titled “SOFCs for FLIGHT”. This follows PCI’s successful completion of its Phase 1 under the U.S. Department of Energy's Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy’s (ARPA-E) REEACH (Range Extenders for Electric Aviation with Low Carbon and High Efficiency) program.
PCI's SOFCs for FLIGHT project continues development of a new SOFC power generator and energy storage system for narrow-body commercial aircraft, enabling all-electric propulsion. The program's mission is to extend the range, efficiency and carbon emissions of electric aircraft by converting carbon-neutral liquid hydrocarbon fuels (synfuels) into electric power for propulsion and onboard systems. The system includes a solid-oxide fuel cell hybridized with a battery and gas turbine, targeted to achieve a fuel-to-electric efficiency exceeding 60% and a stack-specific power > 1 kW/kg, while maintaining economically viable system costs.
Subir Roychoudhury, VP and Principal Investigator at PCI, remarked, “We are committed to advancing sustainable technologies for the aviation and mobility sectors. The ARPA-E REEACH program has helped us overcome major hurdles and meet significant milestones towards this goal. In conjunction with our partners, we look forward to maturing and transitioning the technology toward field applications during the Phase 2.”
Key SOFC requirements for mobility were achieved via multiple innovations to enable a high specific power, turbine-integrated system design for high efficiency, manufacturability, scalability, and low cost. The system includes integrated reforming of energy dense liquid fuels, potential for fast start, thermal cycle tolerance, and fuel flexibility. Transition applications were established by partnering with space, defense, automotive, and aviation partners and examining tech-to-market feasibility.
The 24-month Phase 2 effort will mature and validate a scalable 10 kWe SOFC stack capable of operation with H2 and carbon neutral liquid fuels (e.g., synthetic fuels), and meeting program goals for durability, start-up time, and start/stop cycles. The system design will also be matured based on subscale component testing and validation.
Kevin Burns, President of PCI, commented, "By advancing our breakthrough fuel cell system technology through prototype validation and collaborating with industry partners, we are overcoming challenges to all-electric air propulsion and developing solutions for the aviation and other mobility industries."
Precision Combustion, Inc. is a clean energy and environmental technology company developing new reactors and systems for energy and environmental sector applications.
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Anthony Anderson
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