NASA SBIR 2005 Solicitation

SMALL BUSINESS CONCERN (Firm Name, Mail Address, City/State/Zip, Phone)
Lynntech, Inc.
7607 Eastmark Drive, Suite 102
College Station ,TX 77840 - 4027
(979) 693 - 0017

PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR/PROJECT MANAGER (Name, E-mail, Mail Address, City/State/Zip, Phone)
Anuncia   Gonzalez-Martin
anuncia.gonzalez-martin@lynntech.com
7607 Eastmark Drive, Suite 102
College Station, TX  77840 -4027
(979) 693 - 0017

TECHNICAL ABSTRACT (LIMIT 200 WORDS)
Fuel cells offer a promising technology for clean, efficient power generation important to both High Altitude Long Endurance (HALE) remotely piloted aircraft, and future envisioned environmentally friendly commercial transports. In addition, hydrogen and fuel cells have the potential to solve several major challenges facing America today: dependence on petroleum imports, poor air quality, and greenhouse gas emissions. One of the most challenging issues in today's Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM) fuel cell is to increase unit power and power density (volume and weight). Bipolar plates play a critical role in the PEM fuel cell performance and durability, and they represent the major part of the fuel cell stack in weight and volume. Bipolar plates are also a significant contributor to the stack costs. Lynntech will develop a new type of bipolar plate using electrically conductive polymer sheets. The material is light, inexpensive, highly conductive, chemically inert, easy to process, and corrosion resistant. The use of this conductive polymer bipolar plate in PEM fuel cells will reduce cell weight, volume, and cost, while simplifying cell assembly. This in turn will drastically increase fuel cell unit power and power density.

POTENTIAL NASA COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
Fuel cells offer a promising technology for clean, efficient power generation important to both High Altitude Long Endurance (HALE) remotely piloted aircraft, and future envisioned environmentally friendly commercial transports. To realize these aircraft applications will require one or even two orders of magnitude improvement in unit power and power density (volume and weight) for the fuel cell stack, as compared to ground based systems. Bipolar plates represent the major part of the fuel cell stack in weight and volume. Thus, reducing bipolar plates weight and volume will have a direct impact on increasing the fuel cell unit power and power density.

POTENTIAL NON-NASA COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS (LIMIT 150 WORDS)
The new material has significant commercial potential because of its lightweight and low cost. It also has a high potential for public acceptance because it will solve some of the serious problems associated with today's PEM fuel cell technology. The inexpensive approach developed by Lynntech for the fabrication of conductive polymer sheets will significantly simplify the assembly of fuel cells, increase power density (kW/L) and specific power (kW/kg), while substantially reducing the cost. This in turn will enable wider commercial adoption of PEM fuel cells. This new technology will be of particular interest to the federal government and private industries that can be benefited by the use of stationary and mobile PEM fuel cells. Examples include: (i) replacement of gasoline and internal combustion engines in cars and buses, (ii) small portable power units for cell phones, lap tops, and computers; and (iii) stationary power units for homes, industries and communities.

NASA's technology taxonomy has been developed by the SBIR-STTR program to disseminate awareness of proposed and awarded R/R&D in the agency. It is a listing of over 100 technologies, sorted into broad categories, of interest to NASA.

TECHNOLOGY TAXONOMY MAPPING

Multifunctional/Smart Materials Renewable Energy