An experimental study for optimizing the energy efficiency of a proton exchange membrane fuel cell with an open-cathode

To develop an operating strategy for maximizing the energy efficiency of open-cathode proton exchange membrane fuel cells (OCPEMFCs), the present study investigates the effect of the fan speed on the stack performance and energy efficiency using a commercially available OCPEMFC system. The temperature, voltage, and current of the stack are monitored, and the energy efficiency is calculated at various stack power levels. The results of the system with a lab-developed controller are compared with the commercial system with a built-in controller. It is found that the fan speed should be minimum to reduce the auxiliary power consumption and that the stack should be efficiently heated to enhance the electrochemical reaction. In addition, it is noticed that the stack performance dramatically drops when the stack temperature is above 75 °C, due to the membrane dehydration. Overall, the results show that the stack temperature is an important indicator for controlling the fan speed for optimization of energy efficiency, and for stack powers of 50, 60, 70, and 80 W, the peak values of energy efficiencies are 38.0%, 38.3%, 38.5%, and 38.3% at the duty cycles of 0.2, 0.2, 0.25, and 0.3, respectively, which are 28–38% higher than the commercially available OCPEMFC system.     

Study of a porous membrane humidification method in polymer electrolyte fuel cells

A gas humidification sub-system that does not add to the parasitic power loss is advantageous for water management in PEMFC. A membrane humidifier was fabricated with porous membrane and the performance of the single cell using this humidifier has been evaluated. The study shows that the performance of the humidifier is comparable to that of the bubble humidifier. It was further found that the humidifier is suitable for both water and exhaust cathode air as the humidifying medium.     

Effect of chloride impurities on the performance and durability of polybenzimidazole-based high temperature proton exchange membrane fuel cells

The effect of chloride as an air impurity and as a catalyst contaminant on the performance and durability of polybenzimidazole (PBI)-based high temperature proton exchange membrane fuel cell (HT-PEMFC) was studied. The ion chromatographic analysis reveals the existence of chloride contaminations in the Pt/C catalysts. Linear sweep voltammetry was employed to study the redox behavior of platinum in 85% phosphoric acid containing chloride ions, showing increase in oxidation and decrease in reduction current densities during the potential scans at room temperature. The potential scans at high temperatures in 85% phosphoric acid containing chloride ions showed both increase in oxidation and reduction current densities. The fuel cell performance, i.e. the current density at a constant voltage of 0.4 V and 0.5 V was found to be degraded as soon as HCl was introduced in the air humidifier. The performance loss was recovered when switching from the HCl solution back to pure water in the air humidifier. Under an accelerated aging performance test conducted through potential cycling between 0.9 V and 1.2 V, the PBI-based fuel cell initially containing 0.5 NaCl mg cm⁻² on the cathode catalyst layer exhibited a drastic degradation in the performance as compared to the chloride free MEAs. The mechanisms of the chloride effect on the fuel cell performance and durability were further discussed.     

Study on voltage clamping and self-humidification effects of pem fuel cell system with dual recirculation based on orthogonal test method

Durability and reliability are still major challenges of vehicular polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) systems. With exhaust gas recirculation on both the anode and cathode sides, two important functions can be achieved: the voltage clamping in low current density, and the self-humidification without any external humidifiers. The former restrains catalyst decay in small load working conditions, and the latter is beneficial for improving the cold-start ability. In this study, dynamic performances and stable characteristics of a fuel cell system with dual exhaust gas recirculation are firstly experimentally studied using an orthogonal test method. System parameters, including humidification temperature of cathode external humidifier, fresh air stoichiometric ratio (SR), current density, cathode and anode recirculation pump speeds, are regarded as key factors in the experiments based on the testing conditions of the test-bench. Two four-factor and three-level orthogonal tables are designed, and the effects of key factors on system performance indices (average cell voltage, relative humidity (RH) at cathode inlet, high frequency resistance (HFR), oxygen concentrations at cathode inlet and outlet, and the concentration difference between these two positions) are investigated. Results show that: (1) with the cathode recirculation, the cell voltage can be reduced in low current densities by coordinately adjusting the recycled gas flow and reducing fresh air SR; (2) with the dual recirculation, the fuel cell membrane can be well hydrated, and system performance only shows 3% reduction compared with a system with an external humidifier; (3) the difference between the oxygen molar concentration at the inlet and outlet of cathode gas channels becomes small using dual recirculation.     

Comprehensive investigation of membrane sorption and CFD modeling of a tube membrane humidifier with experimental validation

The humidification of PEM fuel cells is critical for their performance and efficiency and for ensuring a long durability. In most PEM fuel cell systems for mobile applications membrane humidifiers are used to humidify the fresh air. In this process, the water contained in the cathode exhaust gas is used to increase the humidity of the supply air. Despite the simple design of membrane humidifiers, the simulation of the water transfer is difficult and so far there exist hardly any precise models to calculate the absorption and desorption processes. Common approaches that use the Sherwood number to determine the sorption rates cannot account for the influence of the local water content of the membrane. This ultimately leads to an inaccurate simulation of humidifier behavior, as these models cannot consider the fact that desorption is nearly ten times faster than absorption.In this study, an empirical formula for an accurate determination of the sorption rate is derived based on experimental data. This function accounts for the different absorption and desorption rates by finding a sorption rate coefficient as a function of the local membrane water content, temperature, pressure and flow velocity.Furthermore, a CFD model is derived from the geometry of a commercially available membrane humidifier, which is also investigated on a test bench. Using the experimental data, the CFD model is validated and it is shown that the developed sorption rate formula leads to good agreements between simulations and experiments at steady-state operating points of the humidifier.     

Modeling and experimental validation of H2 gas bubble humidifier for a 50 kW stationary PEMFC system

Ensuring uniform membrane hydration in a PEMFC (Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell) is important for its performance and durability. In this study, a bubble humidifier for humidifying hydrogen in a 50 kW PEMFC pilot plant was designed, built, and modeled. Initial tests, carried out by humidifying air, show that a dew point temperature of higher than 59 °C is attained when operating the PEMFC plant at nominal power at 65 °C. The model simulation results show good agreement with experimental data and the model is used for studying humidifier performance at other conditions. Steady state simulation results suggest that by increasing the heating water flow rate, the humidifier outlet dew point temperature can be increased by several degrees because of improved heat transfer. Finally, dynamic simulation results suggest that the humidity of the hydrogen can be controlled by manipulating the heat supply to the humidifier.     

Significant improvement in cathode performance for proton exchange membrane fuel cell by a novel double catalyst layer design

Conventional double catalyst layer (DCL) structures show no obvious improvement in cathode performance, due to the contradiction between improving mass transfer and maintaining good platinum (Pt) utilization. To decrease this conflict, a novel DCL cathode is prepared using catalysts with two different amounts of Pt; the catalyst with higher Pt content is used in the inner layer to concentrate the Pt, and the catalyst containing less Pt is used in the outer layer to maintain a suitable layer thickness. Polarization characteristics of cathodes with this novel DCL, a conventional DCL, and a single catalyst layer (SCL) are evaluated at ambient pressure in an H₂/air PEMFC. The results show a significant increase in performance with the novel DCL cathode. Compared with the SCL cathode, the current density of the novel DCL cathode at 0.6 V increases by 35.9%, while that of the conventional DCL cathode increases by just 8.8%.     

Effects of cathode thickness and microstructural properties on the performance of protonic ceramic fuel cell (PCFC): A 3D modelling study

Protonic Ceramic Fuel Cells (PCFCs) are promising power sources operating at an intermediate temperature. Although plenty of experimental studies focusing on novel material development are available, the design optimization of PCFC through numerical modelling is limited. In this study, a 3D PCFC model focusing on the cathode thickness and microstructure design is developed due to the high overpotential loss of the cathode. Unlike the 1D/2D models, the rib-size effects on the PCFC performance are fully considered when optimizing the cathode structure. Different from 1D/2D models suggesting thin cathode thickness, this study finds that the optimal cathode thickness is about 120–200 μm. In a thin cathode, weak O₂ diffusion from the channel to the rib-covered cathode can lead to O₂ depletion under the rib and very low local cell performance. By adjusting the cathode porosity from 0.3 to 0.5, nearly 9% performance improvement and 22.5% improvement in gas distribution uniformity can be achieved. When the cathode particle size changes from 0.1 μm to 0.2 μm, the O₂ concentration under the rib increases nearly 50%. The optimal electronic phase volume fraction is suggested to be around 50–60% for achieving a balance between ohmic resistance and reaction sites. This model elucidates the relationship between cathode microstructure and PCFC performance comprehensively and can serve as a guiding tool for cell fabrication and future novel interconnect structure design.     

Improvement of the proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) performance at low-humidity conditions by adding hygroscopic γ-Al2O3 particles into the catalyst layer

In this study, hygroscopic γ-alumina particles were added into the catalyst layer of membrane electrode assemblies (MEAs) to improve the wettability and performance of PEMFC at low-humidity conditions. Hygroscopic γ-alumina particles with a BET surface area of 442 m² g⁻¹ and an average pore diameter of 9 nm were synthesized by a three-step sol–gel procedure. Uniform Pt/C/γ-alumina catalyst ink was prepared by utilizing an ultrasonic method, and then sprayed on commercial hydrophobic carbon clothes to serve as the catalyst layer. The water contact angles of the catalyst layer with various amounts of γ-alumina additions 0%, 10%, 20% and 40% were measured to be 136°, 109°, 79° and 0°, respectively. Effect of adding γ-alumina particles into the catalyst layer on the single cell performance was investigated under different temperatures of the electrode humidifier. The increased wettability of the cathode catalyst layer with γ-alumina addition reduced the cell performance due to water flooding, which demonstrates the hygroscopic characteristic of γ-alumina particles. On the other hand, when the γ-alumina particles were added into the anode catalyst layer, it was found that the MEA with 10% γ-alumina addition had the highest current density at anode humidifier temperatures ranging from 25 to 55 °C. Nevertheless, the MEA with 40% γ-alumina addition into the anode catalyst layer showed the lowest current density because of the high electrical resistance of the catalyst layer and the water flooding in the anode caused by excess water absorption. The increased wettability of the anode catalyst layer by an appropriate amount of γ-alumina additions also enhances the water adsorption of the anode due to back diffusion.     

燃料电池空气系统增湿器建模与仿真

建立气-气增湿器的数学理论模型,并基于Amesim软件建立燃料电池增湿器及空气系统仿真模型,从燃料电池系统层面分析干湿侧不同温度、压力、水含量等输入条件下的干侧出口空气的湿度变化情况,并采用水转移率（water vapor transfer rate,WVTR）对增湿器增湿性能进行评价,结果表明此模型可进行前期验证,能较好地预测汽车运行过程中增湿器的动态响应特性。     

An experimental study on the bubble humidification method of polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells

A necessary requirement for polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) performance is providing sufficient water content in the membrane. The bubble humidifier is the simplest and inexpensive method for PEMFC humidification. In this study, a prototype of bubble humidifier is designed, fabricated, and tested. The effects of water temperature in the reservoir, water level inside the reservoir and inlet air flow on the humidifier performance are investigated. The results show that the outlet air relative humidity decreases (about 6% - 11%) with an increase in the inlet air flow rate from 1 m³ h^?1 to 3 m³ h^?1 at four different water temperatures. The increase in the water temperature and water level inside the reservoir lead to the better humidifier performance. At the water temperature of 20^°C, increasing water level from 5 cm to 7.5 cm has a significant effect on humidifier performance but increasing water level from 7.5 cm to 15 cm does not offer any advantage.     

Studies on the cathode humidification by exhaust gas recirculation for PEM fuel cell

For high efficiency and long durability of proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs), polymer electrolyte membranes should be kept wet. Reactant gases should be humidified on this account. For the humidification, the PEMFC system uses an external or internal humidifier as a part of balance of plants (BOPs). However, external humidifiers have many disadvantages such as parasitic power loss, system complexity, high cost and bulky volume. As such, efforts have been made to remove the external humidifier or replace it with an advanced humidifier. In this work, to remove a humidifier, humidification by exhaust gas recirculation is investigated by theoretical analysis and experiments with 5-cell stack of an active area 250 cm². In the theoretical analysis, species conservation equations and energy conservation equation are solved to obtain the O₂ concentration, stoichiometric ratio, humidity ratio, temperature, amount of condensed water and so on. With the theoretical results, experiments with 5-cell, 250 cm² fuel cell stack were carried out in order to analyze the stack performance at the theoretical conditions of the cathode process stream of exhaust gas recirculation.     

Effect of operating parameters on dynamic response of water-to-gas membrane humidifier for proton exchange membrane fuel cell vehicle

An analytic multi-dimensional dynamic model of a membrane type humidifier has been developed for the study of transient responses of the humidifier under proton exchange membrane fuel cell vehicle operating conditions. The dynamic responses of heat and mass transfer and fluid flow in a membrane humidifier are mathematically formulated and modeled with a newly developed pseudo-multi-dimensional concept. The model is used to analyze the performance of the humidifier under various operating conditions and the dynamic response of the humidifier under transient operating conditions. The simulation results show that, in the case of the water-to-gas type membrane humidifier modeled in this study, the time constant of water diffusion in the membrane is less than 1 s. Thus, the delay of the response of the humidifier induced by the vapor diffusion in the membrane is not significant in vehicle operation. However, it is also found that the dynamic behavior is mainly due to the thermal resistance and heat capacity of the membrane humidifier.     

Numerical analysis and experimental research on cathode pore-forming characteristics and mass transfer performance of direct ethanol fuel cell

Design of direct ethanol fuel cell (DEFC) plays a key role in its viability. A novel tubular DEFC is proposed to reconstruct the conventional structure, and tubular cathode is prepared by gel injection molding with Mesocarbon microbeads (MCMB), graphite and NH₄Cl with different contents as raw materials. Moreover, simulation on the mass transfer and electrochemical performance of DEFC with a wider range of cathode porosity is carried out. Experiment results indicates that the support has higher porosity and strength when the graphite doping and NH₄Cl is 40% and 2%–10%, respectively. Furthermore, superior performance of cathode and DEFC electrical performance are perceived due to larger porosity, especially when the porosity is 0.5. Moreover, in the simulation the results also show that porosity of cathode diffusion layer (CCL) has a significant effect on the oxygen mass transfer and removal of liquid water. Larger porosity means better electrical performance and delivers more power, which is more obvious at 0.2–0.6. It is proved that when the porosity is about 0.5, comprehensive performance of tubular DEFC is better than other models.     

HAT循环逆流式湿化器的热力性能实验研究及冷却数计算

在理论分析湿化器内部传热传质机理的基础上，进行了湿化器总体热力性能试验，得出了在不同实验工况下，各测量参数对湿化器热力性能的影响规律，同时计算了冷却数，得出了其变化规律。结果表明：随水气质量比的增大，湿化器出口湿空气的温度、温升和出口水温都增大，而冷却数减少。在同一水气质量比下，随进口水温升高，出口湿空气温度、温升和出口水温都增大，冷却数减少。在各实验工况下，湿化器的出口湿空气都具有很高的相对湿度，达到或接近饱和状态。冷却数降低对系统有利，但不是越低越好，应该优化选择最佳值。     

Experimental verification of a membrane humidifier model based on the effectiveness method

Experiments conducted on a commercial fuel cell humidifier determined that the water recovery ratio is the best performance metric because it considers the water supplied to the humidifier. Data from a porous polymer membrane with a hydrophilic additive were analyzed under a heat and mass transfer model. The membrane showed low water uptake profiles at relative humidities below 80 percent, and a steep increase in water uptake above threshold.The experiments were conducted with samples of the porous membrane in a single cell humidifier at isothermal conditions at temperatures of 25, 50, and 75 °C. The water recovery ratio for the porous membrane decreased with increasing flow rate.The model was verified experimentally and its predictions agreed with the measured data.     

Experimental investigation of the role of a microporous layer on the water transport and performance of a PEM fuel cell

A highly reliable experimental system that consistently closed the overall water balance to within 5% was developed to study the role of a microporous layer (MPL), attached to carbon paper porous transport layer (PTL), on the water transport and performance of a standard 100 cm² active area PEM fuel cell. Various combinations of cells were built and tested with PTLs at the electrodes using either carbon fibre paper with a MPL (SGL 10BB) or carbon fibre paper without a MPL (SGL 10BA). The net water drag coefficient at three current densities (0.3, 0.5 and 0.7 A cm⁻²) for two combinations of anode/cathode relative humidity (60/100% and 100/60%) and stoichiometric ratios of H₂/air (1.4/3 and 1.4/2) was determined from water balance measurements. The addition of a MPL to the carbon fibre paper PTL at the cathode did not cause a statistically significant change to the overall drag coefficient although there was a significant improvement to the fuel cell performance and durability when a MPL was used at the cathode. The presence of a MPL on either electrode or on both electrodes also exhibited similar performance compared to when the MPL was placed at the cathode. These results indicate that the presence of MPL indeed improves the cell performance although it does not affect the net water drag coefficient. The correlation between cell performance and global water transport cannot be ascertained and warrants further experimental investigation.     

Two dimensional dynamic modeling of a shell-and-tube water-to-gas membrane humidifier for proton exchange membrane fuel cell

Water management is a crucial factor in determining the performance of proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) for automotive application. The shell-and-tube water-to-gas membrane humidifier is useful for humidifying the PEMFC due to its good performance. Shell-and-tube water-to-gas membrane humidifiers have liquid water on one side of the tube wall and a dry gas on the other. In order to investigate humidifier performance, a two-dimensional dynamic model of a shell-and-tube water-to-gas membrane humidifier is developed. The model is discretized into three control volumes – shell, tube and membrane – in the cross-sectional direction to resolve the temperature and species concentration of the humidifier. For validation, the dew point temperature of the simulation result is compared with that of experimental data and shows good agreement with only a slight difference. The distribution of humidification characteristics can be captured using the discretization along the air-flow direction. The humidification performance of two different flow configurations, counter and parallel, are compared under various operating conditions and geometric parameters. Finally, the dynamic response of the humidifier at the step-change of various air flow rates is investigated. These results suggest that the model can be used to optimize the inlet flow humidity of a PEMFC.     

Experimental study on dual recirculation of polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell

Durability and start-up ability in sub-zero environment are two technical bottlenecks of vehicular polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) fuel cell systems. With exhaust gas recirculation on the anode and cathode side, the cell voltage at low current density can be reduced, and the membrane can be humidified without external humidifier. They may be helpful to prolong the working lifetime and to promote the start-up ability. This paper presents an experimental study on a PEM fuel cell system with anodic and cathodic recirculation. The system is built up based on a 10 kW fuel cell stack, which consists of 50 cells and has an active area of 261 cm². A cathodic recirculation pump and a hydrogen recirculation pump are utilized on the cathode and anode side, respectively. Key parameters, e.g., stack current, stack voltage, cell voltage, air flow, relative humidity on the cathode side, oxygen concentration at the inlet and outlet of the cathode side, are measured. Results show that: 1) with a cathodic recirculation the system gets good self-humidification effect, which is similar to that with an external humidifier; 2) with a cathodic recirculation and a reduction of fresh air flux, the cell voltage can be obviously reduced; 3) with an anodic recirculation the cell voltage can also be reduced due to a reduction in the hydrogen partial pressure, the relative humidity on the cathode side is a little smaller than the case with only cathode recirculation. It indicates that, for our stack the cathodic recirculation is effective to clamp cell voltage at low current density, and a self-humidification system is possible with cathodic recirculation. Further study will focus on the dynamic model and control of the dual recirculation fuel cell system.     

A parametric study of the performance of a planar membrane humidifier with a heat and mass exchanger model for design optimization

The performance of a proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) is seriously changed by the humidification capability available when equipped with a PTFE® membrane. Typically, the humidification of a fuel cell is carried out by means of an internal or external humidifier. A membrane humidifier is applied to the external humidification of residential power generation fuel cell due to its convenience and high performance. In this study, a static model is constructed to understand the physical phenomena of the membrane humidifier in terms of geometric parameters and operating parameters. The model utilizes the concept of planar type heat exchanger with mass transport through the membrane. The model is constructed with FORTRAN in a Simulink® environment for consistency with other components of the model we previously developed. The results show that the humidity of the wet gas and the channel length, the membrane thickness and wet gas inlet humidity are critical parameters affecting the performance of the humidifier.