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DTIC ADA361606: Metal Hydride Preheater for the M2 Diesel Burner

This report describes the results of a Phase I Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) project to demonstrate the feasibility of preheating the catalytic generator of the M2 diesel burner using a metal hydride preheater. Preliminary testing of an electrically heated generator showed that the originally proposed concept of preheating the catalytic generator of the burner would have resulted in excessive weight for the hydride system. An alternate approach of preheating only the "superheater," and using it to vaporize the fuel at start-up, was implemented instead. This resulted in an extremely compact and lightweight burner system that ignited cleanly an rapidly. The Phase I results indicate that the "hydride superheater" is an effective means of obtaining clean ignition of a diesel cook stove burner. Furthermore, the resulting burner is considerably smaller and lighter than the M2 burner. Additional work is required to optimize the designs of the preheater and the superheater, to scale-up the capacity of the burner and to develop practical burner controls.

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