• The Transactions of the Korean Institute of Power Electronics
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.134-141
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• 2010

Small PEM (Proton Exchange Membrane) fuel cell systems do not require humidification and have great commercialization possibilities. However, methods for controlling small PEM fuel cell stacks have not been clearly established. In this paper, a control method for small PEM fuel cell systems using a dual closed loop with a static feedforward structure is defined and realized using a DSP (Digital Signal Processor). The fundamental elements that need to be controlled in fuel cell systems include the supply of air and hydrogen, water management inside the stack, and heat management of the stack. For small PEM fuel cell stacks operated without a separate humidifier, fans are essential for air supply, heat management, and water management of the stack. A purge valve discharges surplus water from the stack. The proposed method controls the fan using double control loops to quicken transient response of the fan thereby improving the supply rate of air. Feedback control to compensate for the voltage change in fuel cell stack improves the response characteristics in fuel cell to load variations. The feasibility of proposed method was proved by the experiments with a 60W small PEM fuel cell system and operation of a notebook computer using this system.

• International Journal of Automotive Technology
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.119-126
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• 2007

Because of the low temperature operation, proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell has a water phase transition. Therefore, water management is an important operation issue in a PEM fuel cell because the liquid water in the fuel cell causes electrode flooding that can lower the cell performance under high current density conditions. In this study, in order to understand the reactant distributions in the cathode channels of the PEM fuel cell, an experimental technique that can measure the species concentrations of reactant gases by using gas chromatograph (GC) is applied for an operating PEM fuel cell. The oxygen distribution along the cathode flow channels of PEM fuel cell is mainly investigated with various operating conditions. Also, the relations between cathode flooding and oxygen concentrations and oxygen consumption pattern along the cathode channel configurations of the unit cell adopted for this study are discussed using GC measurement and visualization experiment of cathode flooding. It is found that the amount of oxygen consumption is very sensitive to various operating conditions of the fuel cell and was much affected by the flooding occurrence in cathode channels.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2005.06a
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• pp.326-329
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• 2005

Proton exchange membrane (PEM) should be sufficiently hydrated with proper water management to maintain a good ionic conductivity and performance of a PEM fuel cell. However. cathode flooding resulting from excess water can impede the transport of reactants and hence deteriorate the fuel cell performance. For the PEM fuel cell to be commercially viable as vehicle or portable applications, the flooding on the cathode side should be minimized during the fuel cell operation. In this study, visualization technique was applied to understand the cathode flooding phenomena on the cathode side of a PEM fuel cell. To this end. a transparent PEM unit fuel cell wi th an act ive area of $25cm^2$ was designed and manufactured to allow for the visualization of cathode channel with performance characteristics. Two-phase flow resulting from the electro-chemical reaction of fuel cell was investigated experimentally. The images photographed by CCD camera with cell operating temperatures $(30\~50^{\circ}C)$ were presented. Results indicated that the flooding on the cathode side first occurs near the exit of cathode channel. As the operating temperature of fuel cell increases. it was found that liquid water droplets tend to evaporate easily and it can have an influence on lowering the flooding level. It is expected that this study can effectively contribute to the detailed researches on modeling water transport of an operating PEM fuel cell including two-phase flow phenomena.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.23 no.5
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• pp.476-483
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• 2012

Proper water management is crucial for the efficient operation of polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) fuel cell. Especially, for automotive applications, A novel water management that can avoid both membrane dry-out and flooding is a very important task to achieve good performance and efficiency of PEM fuel cells. The aim of this study is to investigate the liquid water behavior on the gas diffusion layer (GDL) surface and in the cathode flow channel of a PEM unit fuel cell under flooding conditions. For this purpose, a transparent unit fuel cell is devised and fabricated by modifying the conventional PEM fuel cell design. The results of water droplet behavior under flooding conditions are mainly presented. The water distributions in the cathode flow channels with cell operating voltage are also compared and analyzed. Through this work, it is expected that the data obtained from this fundamental study can be effectively used to establish the basic water management strategy in terms of water removal from the flow channels in a PEM fuel cell stack.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2007.05b
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• pp.2003-2008
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• 2007

The transient power characteristics of a PEM fuel cell stack was experimentally studied using a commercial 1.2kW PEM fuel cell ($Nexa^{TM}$ Power Module, Ballard Power System Inc.). The conditions in PEM fuel cell stack such as temperature and water content change rather slowly because of their large heat capacity and long channel length, which results in long transient time to converge to a steady state. The steady characteristics of the PEM fuel cell module was determined first, followed by the measurement of its transient characteristics upon stepwise and continuous load current changes. During the stepwise current change from 5A to 25A, the output voltage initially decreased below the steady voltage and then increased gradually. Similar behavior was also observed for the stepwise current change from 25A to 5A. This transient behavior is explained with reference to the evolution of the temperature and water content of the PEM fuel cell stack.

• Advances in Energy Research
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.253-264
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• 2022

This paper deals with the effects of design (active area, current density, membrane conductivity) and operating parameters (temperature, relative humidity) on the performance of hydrogen-fuelled proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell. The design parameter of a PEM fuel cell with the active area of the single cell considered in this study is 25 cm² (5 × 5). The operating voltage and current density of the fuel cell were 0.7 V and 0.5 A/cm² respectively. The variations of activation voltage, ohmic voltage, and concentration voltage with respect to current density are analyzed in detail. The membrane conductivity with variable relative humidity is also analyzed. The results show that the maximum activation overpotential of the fuel cell was 0.4358 V at 0.21 A/cm² due to slow reaction kinetics. The calculated ohmic and concentrated overpotential in the fuel cell was 0.01395 V at 0.76 A/cm² and 0.027 V at 1.46 A/cm² respectively.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2006.11a
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• pp.101-104
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• 2006

Water management is considered to be one of the main issues to be addressed for the performance improvement of proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell. For good water management, the detailed information on the water distribution inside an operating PEM fuel cell should be available to main an adequate level of hydration in the PEM While avoiding performance decline due to liquid rater flooding. For the PEM fuel cell to be commercially viable as vehicle applications, the flooding on the cathode side should be minimized during the fuel ceil operation. In this study to investigate cathode flooding and its relation with temperature distribution in flow channels, visualization study was performed on the cathode side of a PEM fuel cell. For the direct visualization of temperature field and water transport in cathode flow channels, a transparent cell was designed and manufactured using quartz window. Water transport and its two-phase flow characteristics in flow channels were investigated experimentally. Also, the visualization of temperature distribution In cathode flow channels was made by using IR camera. Results indicated that the temperature rise near the exit of cathode flow channel was found. It is found that this area corresponds to the flooding area from both temperature and flooding visualization results It is expected that this study can effectively contribute to get the detailed data on water transport linked with heat management during the operation of a PEM fuel cell

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2006.11a
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• pp.105-108
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• 2006

The fuel cell is one of the promising environment-friendly energy sources for the next generation. The fuel cell provides good energy efficiency above 40% without pollution or noise. Different fuel cell types are usually distinguished by the kind of electrolyte. Among these, the proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) has advantages of high power density. low operating temperature, relatively quick start-up, and rapid response to varying loads. The bipolar plate is a major component of the PEM fuel cell stack, and it takes a large portion of stack volume, weight and cost. In this study, as alternative materials for bipolar plate of PEM fuel cells, graphite composites were fabricated by compression molding and by machining. Graphite particles mixed with epoxy resin were used as the main substance to provide electric conductivity. Flow channels were fabricated by compression molding with design of experiments (DOE) to evaluate moldability. The cost for compression molding of graphite-composite bipolar plate was compared with machining cost to make the same bipolar plate.

• Journal of Electrochemical Science and Technology
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.104-114
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• 2019

Energy is an essential driving force for modern society. In particular, electricity has become the standard source of power for almost every aspect of life. Electric power runs lights, televisions, cell phones, laptops, etc. However, it has become apparent that the current methods of producing this most valuable commodity combustion of fossil fuels are of limited supply and has become detrimental for the Earth's environment. It is also self-evident, given the fact that these resources are non-renewable, that these sources of energy will eventually run out. One of the most promising alternatives to the burning of fossil fuel in the production of electric power is the proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell. The PEM fuel cell is environmentally friendly and achieves much higher efficiencies than a combustion engine. Water management is an important issue of PEM fuel cell operation. Water is the product of the electrochemical reactions inside fuel cell. If liquid water accumulation becomes excessive in a fuel cell, water columns will clog the gas flow channel. This condition is referred to as flooding. A number of researchers have examined the water removal methods in order to improve the performance. In this paper, a new water removal method that investigates the use of vibro-acoustic methods is presented. Piezo-actuators are devices to generate the flexural wave and are attached at end of a cathode bipolar plate. The "flexural wave" is used to impart energy to resting droplets and thus cause movement of the droplets in the direction of the traveling wave.

• Journal of Power Electronics
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.202-210
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• 2011

Polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) fuel cell is one of the popular renewable energy sources and widely used in commercial medium power areas from portable electronic devices to electric vehicles. In addition, the increased integration of the PEM fuel cell with power electronics, dynamic loads, and control systems requires accurate electrical models and simulation methods to emulate their electrical behaviors. Advancement in parallel computation techniques, various real-time simulation tools, and smart power hardware have allowed the prototyping of novel apparatus to be investigated in a virtual system under a wide range of realistic conditions repeatedly, safely, and economically. This paper builds up advancements of optimized model constructions for a fuel cell stack system on a real-time simulator in the view points of improving dynamic model accuracy and boosting computation speed. In addition, several considerations for a power hardware-in-the-loop (PHIL) simulation are provided to electrically emulate the PEM fuel cell stack system with power facilities. The effectiveness of the proposed PHIL simulation method developed on Opal RT's RT-Lab Matlab/Simulink based real-time engineering simulator and a programmable power supply is verified using experimental results of the proposed PHIL simulation system with a Ballard Nexa fuel cell stack.