Technical feasibility assessment of a PEM fuel cell refrigerator system

PEM Fuel Cells (PEMFCs), fueled by hydrogen, are electrochemical devices that convert hydrogen to useful power and two by-products: heat and water. They cover an important part of power applications namely in the transportation area, and in other practical applications that are either stationary or portable. In particular, the domestic refrigerator is one of the daily and indispensable applications but with a high-energy demand due to the high running time cycles. This work is a technical assessment of the feasibility of building a coupled “PEM Fuel Cell – Refrigerator” system. Real technical data for the refrigerator are collected, processed and evaluated. The obtained results show reasonable flows consumption rates. In fact, the refrigerator requires a flow rate of 1.607 slpm of hydrogen and 8 slpm of air at a pressure of respectively 3 atm and 1 atm. The water is produced at a rate of 1.285 10⁻³ slpm. The annual amount of hydrogen consumed by the refrigerator is estimated to 28, 47 kg. The energy provided to the refrigerator is about 130 W and the energy needed by the air compressor is 28, 24 W. A technical solution is suggested at the end of this work to reduce the start and stop cycles of the fuel cell.