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