Assessing economic viability of fuel cell and battery hybrid propulsion in recreational boats: incorporating degradation rate in batteries

The maritime sector has been exploring hybrid fuel cell/battery systems as an alternative solution to reduce exhaust gas emissions in compliance with regulations from the International Maritime Organization (IMO). This study presents a system model that incorporates fuel cells and batteries and simulates the entire hybrid system for low-power boats. The results show the reduction in range due to battery degradation at the end of the system's lifetime, with reduction ratios ranging from 0.21% to 10% depending on the scenario. The electricity production costs with green hydrogen utilization are higher than using shore electricity, but blue and grey hydrogen utilization show potential for reducing fuel costs. The FC utilization increases the range of the boat, leading to reduced electricity production costs in configurations where hydrogen is the supplementary energy source. Grey hydrogen utilization shows promising economic results compared to shore electricity, with a break-even cost of 2.167 $/kg. However, further comprehensive economic analyses considering levelized energy costs and payback periods of fuel cells are necessary. Overall, this study highlights the potential benefits and challenges of integrating fuel cells and batteries in hybrid systems for maritime applications.</p

Development and Mechanical Modeling of Si1-xGex/Si MQW Based Uncooled Microbolometers in a 130 nm BiCMOS

This paper presents the development of process integration and mechanical modeling of a Si1-xGex/Si MQW based uncooled micro-bolometer. The recent progress on layer transfer based integration scheme of Si1-xGex/Si based micro-bolometer into a 130 nm BiCMOS process is presented. The two important parts of the process integration, namely the layer-transfer and stress compensation of the arms are studied. The initial successful results on layer transfer and the FEM modeling for the stress compensation of the thin and narrow arms of the bolometer is presented. Finally, the developed FEM model is compared with the fabricated cantilevers. The results show that the developed FEM model has a very good matching with the experimental results; thus very convenient to use for the FEM modeling of the full bolometer structure