Development of cylindrical PEM fuel cells with semi-cylindrical cathode current collectors
| Autor: | S. Pearn-Rowe, Raghunathan Rengaswamy, S.R. Suseendiran |
|---|---|
| Rok vydání: | 2020 |
| Předmět: |
Materials science
Renewable Energy Sustainability and the Environment business.industry Open-circuit voltage Contact resistance Membrane electrode assembly Energy Engineering and Power Technology Proton exchange membrane fuel cell 02 engineering and technology Current collector 010402 general chemistry 021001 nanoscience & nanotechnology Condensed Matter Physics 01 natural sciences Cathode 0104 chemical sciences law.invention Fuel Technology law Optoelectronics 0210 nano-technology business Current density Power density |
| Zdroj: | International Journal of Hydrogen Energy. 45:10549-10558 |
| ISSN: | 0360-3199 |
| Popis: | Proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cells are attractive because of advantages such as low-temperature operation, no emission of harmful gases and high efficiency. However, the bipolar plates used in the state-of-the-art planar architecture are costly and increase the dead weight of the cell. In addition, the flow channels in the planar fuel cell increase the difficulty in removing the water produced in the cathode during cell operation. Cylindrical PEM fuel cells, on the other hand, do not require bipolar plates and there is no need for precisely machined flow channels. Thus, cylindrical PEM fuel cells are cheap, efficient in water management, and possess higher volumetric and gravimetric power density compared to planar PEM fuel cells. The design of a cylindrical fuel cell is very simple, but the fabrication of the same is fairly complex. In this work, a novel cathode current collector design for cylindrical PEM fuel cell has been developed. The cell performance was limited by low open circuit voltage and high ohmic resistance. The open circuit voltage of the cell is increased from 0.85 V to 0.95 V using an acrylic based adhesive to seal the membrane edges. The contact resistance of the cell is reduced from 75 mOhm to 50 mOhm by increasing the contact pressure on the membrane electrode assembly and it is further reduced to 30 mOhm by gold coating the current collectors. Furthermore, a cumulative 40% increase in peak power has been achieved from the optimization of cathode rib width and hydrogen flow rate. The optimized cell delivered a current density of 400 mA/cm2 at 0.6 V and peak power of 2 W, which is appreciable considering the fact that the cell is air-breathing and operated with very minimal subsystems. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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