Zhou, Shangwei;
Xu, Linlin;
Trogadas, Panagiotis;
Rasha, Lara;
Du, Wenjia;
Shearing, Paul R;
Coppens, Marc-Olivier;
... Jervis, Rhodri; + view all
(2023)
Effects of an easy-to-implement water management strategy on performance and degradation of polymer electrolyte fuel cells.
Journal of Power Sources
, 575
, Article 233184. 10.1016/j.jpowsour.2023.233184.
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Abstract
Intermittent switching between wet and dry reactant gases during operation in a polymer electrolyte fuel cell (PEFC) can improve performance stability, alleviating the effects of flooding by controlling the water content within the system. However, lifetime durability may be affected due to membrane electrode assembly (MEA) boundary delamination and membrane damage. Two relative humidity (RH) control strategies were investigated, using electrochemical performance and MEA degradation as critical indicators. It was found that intermittent switching between wet and dry gases does not accelerate fuel cell degradation if the duration of the dry gas period is set reasonably (dry gases stops before the voltage reaches the apex of the hump). Additionally, current and temperature distribution mapping was utilised to capture the dynamic response between these transitional stages. The switching of dry gases first makes the current density distribution homogeneous, and the maximum current density is reduced subsequently. Then, the current density near the inlet keeps decreasing. Intermittent switching between wet and dry reactant gases is easy to implement and overcomes limitations in mass transfer at medium and high current densities.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Effects of an easy-to-implement water management strategy on performance and degradation of polymer electrolyte fuel cells |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1016/j.jpowsour.2023.233184 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpowsour.2023.233184 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | © 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). |
| Keywords: | Polymer electrolyte fuel cell (PEFC)RH Control, Water management, Current density distribution mapping, Temperature distribution mapping, Performance degradation |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Engineering Science UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Engineering Science > Dept of Chemical Engineering |
| URI: | https://discovery-pp.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10170564 |
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