Performance Evaluation of Free breathing Fuel Cell by using Synthetic Jet Air Blower

Synthetic Jet Air Blower를 이용한 Free Breathing 연료전지의 성능 평가

An free breathing proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) was developed. This paper presents a study of the several effect on the performance of a fuel cell such as air flow rate, opening ratio, and cathode structures. Especially, an air flow rate is critical condition to improve the fuel cell performance. In this paper, we developed a synthetic jet micro air blower to supply high stoichiometric air. The synthetic jet actuation is usually generated by a traditional PZT-driven actuator, which consists of a small cylindrical cavity, orifices and PZT diaphragms. In comparison with free convection fuel cells, the forced-convection fuel cell which equipped synthetic jet micro air blower brings higher performance and stability for long term test. Also, power consumption of the synthetic jet micro air blower is under 0.3W. The results show that the maximum power density was $188mW/cm^2$ at $400mA/cm^2$. The maximum power density was higher 40% than power density of free convection fuel cell.