Verifying Safe Levels Of Hydrogen Diffusion In Wet Aluminum Electrolytic Capacitors

Focus:

Aluminum electrolytic capacitors are so widely used due to their relatively high ratio of energy density to cost that many design engineers may overlook some aspects of the capacitor’s behavior based on its underlying technology. This article looks at hydrogen diffusion, how to determine the resulting levels of hydrogen that a wet electrolytic capacitor will produce in an application and whether these levels are safe. Safety in this case means hydrogen levels below the thresholds that would lead to ignition or even detonation of the hydrogen. This discussion is mainly relevant to applications in which the capacitor is housed in a sealed enclosure and subject to a possible source of ignition. The example used in this discussion is a Xenon flash bulb application.

What you’ll learn:

• How to calculate volumes and concentrations of hydrogen generated by aluminum electrolytic capacitors

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Author & Publication:

Wilmer Companioni, KEMET, Fort Lauderdale, Fla. and Samuel Accardo, KEMET, Dallas, Texas, How2Power Today, Jul 15 2019

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