This paper presents the study of a polymeric fuel cell stack for application in stratospheric long duration balloons (LDB). Such a particular application provides severe requirements in terms of external pressure (a few mbar) and temperature (remarkably below 0°C): Regarding this, the operating conditions of the fuel cell must be decoupled of the external environment. In this case, it is envisaged that feeding gases are pure hydrogen and pure oxygen. Fuel cell cathode and anode sides require the development of proper recirculation devices in order to avoid the release of exhausts into the atmosphere with risks of ice formation, loss of the weight of the nacelle and also a possible interference on the measurements taken on board. The scope of this work consists of: – Preliminary design and modelling of the polymeric fuel cell power module. – Comparison of different hydrogen storage technologies in terms of weight and volume.
