Performance of the PEM fuel cell module. Part 2. Effect of excess ratio and stack temperature

  • Janusz T. Cieśliński Gdansk University of Technology
  • Tomasz Kaczmarczyk Gdansk University of Technology
  • Bartosz Dawidowicz Gdansk University of Technology

Abstract

The paper describes a fuel cell based system performance under different thermal conditions. The system could be fedwith bottled hydrogen or with very high purity hydrogen obtained from reforming of methanol. The system is based on twofuel cell units (1.2 kW each, produced by Ballard Power Systems Inc. and called Nexa), DC/DC converter, DC/AC inverter,microprocessor control unit, load unit, bottled hydrogen supply system and a set of measurement instruments. In this studysteady-state operation of the PEM fuel cell system at different values of air excess ratio and different stack temperature wasinvestigated. The load of the system was provided with the aid of a set of resistors. The results obtained show that the netpower of the system does not depend on the air excess ratio within the range of O2 from 1.9 to 5.0. The polarization curves ofthe fuel cell module showed that the fuel cell performance was improved with increased stack temperature within the range of30C to 65C. It was established that the total efficiency of the tested system depends on the hydrogen source and is higherwhen using bottled hydrogen of about 30% and 16%, for minimum and maximum load, respectively.

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Published
2017-11-01
How to Cite
CIEŚLIŃSKI, Janusz T.; KACZMARCZYK, Tomasz; DAWIDOWICZ, Bartosz. Performance of the PEM fuel cell module. Part 2. Effect of excess ratio and stack temperature. Journal of Power Technologies, [S.l.], v. 97, n. 3, p. 246--251, nov. 2017. ISSN 2083-4195. Available at: <https://papers.itc.pw.edu.pl/index.php/JPT/article/view/601>. Date accessed: 29 mar. 2024.
Section
Fuel Cells and Hydrogen

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