Dynamics of anode–cathode interaction in a polymer electrolyte fuel cell revealed by simultaneous current and potential distribution measurements under local reactant-starvation conditions

Manokaran, A.; Pushpavanam, S.; Sridhar, P.

doi:10.1007/s10800-015-0800-9

Cited by 10 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 53 publications

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“…They showed a degradation in the polarization curve and that the degradation was more significant at the inlet of the cell. Manokaran et al [27] observed the same effect. They ran a fuel cell in an oxidant and hydrogen starvation condition and measured the current density and potential at different spots on the reactant channel flow to determine the effect on performance.…”

Section: Effect On Performance and Agingmentioning

confidence: 63%

A System-Level Modeling of PEMFC Considering Degradation Aspect towards a Diagnosis Process

Bäumler,

Meng,

Benterki

et al. 2023

Energies

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This paper proposes a modular modeling towards a health system integration of fuel cells by considering not only the dynamics of the gases but also fault models that affect the PEMFC performances. The main goal is to simulate the faulty state in order to overcome data scarcity, since running a fuel cell to generate a database under faulty conditions is a costly process in time and resources. The degradation processes detailed in this paper allow to introduce a classification of faults that can occur, giving a better understanding of the performance losses necessary to simulate them. The faults that are detailed and modeled are the flooding, drying and aging processes. This modeling is based on a system approach, so it runs faster than real-time degradation tests, allowing the training and validation of online supervisors, such as the energy management strategy (EMS) method or diagnosis. The faults are reproduced according to the study requirements to be a very effective support tool to help design engineers to include faulty conditions in early design stages toward a diagnosis process and health-conscious energy management strategies.

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Section: Effect On Performance and Agingmentioning

confidence: 63%

A System-Level Modeling of PEMFC Considering Degradation Aspect towards a Diagnosis Process

Bäumler,

Meng,

Benterki

et al. 2023

Energies

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“…The stoichiometry reduction generally causes a steeper inlet-to-outlet concentration gradient due to its higher depletion by the electrochemical reaction. This phenomenon typically occurs over a broad range of the oxygen stoichiometry [37,47,48]. For the fuel, similar effects tend to occur at stoichiometries very close to 1.0.…”

Section: Mild Fgsmentioning

confidence: 82%

Fuel starvation in automotive PEMFC stacks: hydrogen stoichiometry and electric cell-to-cell interaction

Nissen,

Boye,

Schwämmlein

et al. 2024

J. Phys. Energy

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Fuel gross starvation in a polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell is an error state, during which the supplied amount of fuel is insufficient to sustain the requested electrical current. A novel experimental technique was developed to intentionally provoke well-controlled fuel starvation situations of one single cell in a multi-cell fuel cell stack. This modification was implemented in a 20-cell stack of automotive-sized cell geometry and carbon composite bipolar plates. The intentional fuel starvation situation was analyzed using a printed circuit board to measure the current density distribution in addition to a multipoint cell voltage monitoring to measure local cell voltages. The provoked detrimental subsidiary reactions of the anode were found to take place spatially separated from the normal hydrogen oxidation reaction. It was therefore possible to determine and intentionally vary the hydrogen stoichiometry of the fuel starved cell. This error state caused intense distortions of the starved cells current density distribution and local cell voltages. The maximum difference obtained between outlet and inlet voltage of the modified cell was 1.4 V. Compared to the average current density, a more than 4-times higher maximum local current density was measured in the affected cell. Adjacent cells were also affected via electric cell-to-cell interaction. Characteristic patterns therefore became visible in the cell voltage distribution, measured by the inlet and outlet cell voltage monitoring. The use of carbon composite bipolar plates is favoring the occurrence of these patterns due to their relatively high electric sheet resistance. Using the new hardware setup, we could investigate the relation between the hydrogen stoichiometry of the affected cell during fuel gross starvation and the observed irregular redistribution of current density and local cell voltages.

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“…On the other hand, the CDD profile in flow direction is known to be strongly dependent on the operation conditions [20,[38][39][40]. In particular, the relative humidity profile on the cathode (air) side has a major influence due to its high mass flow and therefore capacity to carry water [14,15].…”

Section: Operation Conditionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Interaction phenomena of electrically coupled cells under local reactant starvation in automotive PEMFC stacks

Nissen,

Schrievers,

Huber

et al. 2023

J. Phys. Energy

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The local current density distribution of polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells can be distorted by various error states. Differences in current density distributions of adjacent cells in a stack are equilibrized by in-plane currents within the sandwiched bipolar plates. Degradation stressors like detrimental differences of local cell voltage and current density maxima can thus be generated. A novel method was therefore developed to intentionally manipulate current density distribution profiles by integrating local artificial starvation to only one fuel cell in an assembly. This technique is applied in automotive-sized PEMFC single cell as well as in 20 cells short-stack to analyze such voltage and current redistribution phenomena. A drastic distortion of local cell voltage is only observed for stacks, which is explained by a supplementary simulation. The local voltage distribution of an electrically coupled fuel cell is therefore calculated by combining current density distribution measurements with a spatially resolved polarization curve model. The capabilities and limits of a multipoint cell voltage monitoring measurement device are discussed on this basis. The inspected correlation between these two independent online measurement techniques allows to localize such error states with considerable accuracy during operation of automotive sized PEMFC stacks.

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Dynamics of anode–cathode interaction in a polymer electrolyte fuel cell revealed by simultaneous current and potential distribution measurements under local reactant-starvation conditions

Cited by 10 publications

References 53 publications

A System-Level Modeling of PEMFC Considering Degradation Aspect towards a Diagnosis Process

A System-Level Modeling of PEMFC Considering Degradation Aspect towards a Diagnosis Process

Fuel starvation in automotive PEMFC stacks: hydrogen stoichiometry and electric cell-to-cell interaction

Interaction phenomena of electrically coupled cells under local reactant starvation in automotive PEMFC stacks

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