Breathing Underwater Gliders - BUGs

Artificial gills for fuel cell underwater gliders

The project BUGs started in 2020 as a two-year internally funded Transfer project and successfully demonstrated the proof-of-principle of a power supply for underwater applications, such as ocean gliders, where electrical energy is generated by a hydrogen fuel cell. For the fuel cell operation, the required oxygen is harvested from the ambient seawater using polymer membranes that act as an artificial gill system. The concept promises a rechargeable power supply system that has a higher power density than what is currently possible with the state-of-the-art lithium battery technology. US and EU patents were granted based on this technology. From November 2024, the system will be developed further into a prototype for integration in an ocean glider owned by Hereon (TRL 5-6). This work is funded by the Helmholtz Research Infrastructure project MUSE (Marine Environmental Robotics and Sensor Technologies for Sustainable Research and Management of Coastal, Ocean and Polar Regions) for three years. After this project, the technology will be mature enough to involve industrial partners.