Abstract
Water removal from proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFC) is of great importance to improve start-up ability and mitigate cell degradation when the fuel cell operates at subfreezing temperatures. In this study, we report water removal characteristics under various shut down conditions including a dry gas-purging step. In order to estimate the dehydration level of the electrolyte membrane, the high frequency resistance of the fuel cell stack was observed. Also, a novel method for measuring the amount of residual water in the fuel cell was developed to determine the amount of water removal. The method used the phase change of liquid water and was successfully applied to examine the water removal characteristics. Based on these works, the effects of several parameters such as purging time, flow rate of purging gas, operation current, and stack temperature on the amount of residual water were investigated.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 784-790 |
| Number of pages | 7 |
| Journal | Journal of Power Sources |
| Volume | 180 |
| Issue number | 2 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 2008 Jun 1 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:This work was supported by the New and Renewable Energy R&D Program and National RD&D Organization for Hydrogen and Fuel Cell under the Korea Ministry of Commerce, Industry, and Energy as a part of the development of 200 kW class PEMFC system for bus (2005-N-F12-P-01). Dr. J.H. Jang, was supported by the Korea Research Foundation Grant funded by the Korean Government (MOEHRD) (KRF-2006-214-D00036) while he was at University of Newcastle upon Tyne.
Keywords
- Cold start-up
- Dry gas purging
- Freeze-thaw cycles
- Proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC)
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment
- Energy Engineering and Power Technology
- Physical and Theoretical Chemistry
- Electrical and Electronic Engineering
