PERSPECTIVES OF FUEL CELL DEVELOPMENT WITH TRIZ POINT OF VIEW

Abstract

This paper discuss the perspectives of fuel cell development by the TRIZ point of view. It considers the performance of existing systems for conversion of chemical energy in electricity or mechanical energy and performance perspectives of eight different fuel cell types, given by analytical models, as well as the evolution rates, and patent filing rates of the types with massive research to evaluate the future scenarios of fuel cells usage in different market application niches. In fact the TRIZ and the Theory of Constraints, TOC, have in common the fact that both looks for the elimination to the main cause of the system performance limitations. By the TRIZ point of view, a technical contradiction is always the limiting issue, and as it is eliminated there is a significant performance improvement, but in general people use trade offs instead of looking for innovation. Fuel cells of different types have lots of technical contradictions, linked, for instance, to transport phenomena, processes, efficient use of catalyst among others. Selecting inventive principles to solve these contradictions, and detail their use in a second step is more effective than a random trial and error search for a better system.