Behavior and performance of a water permeable anode for PEM fuel cells

摘要

Anodes in proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFC) usually attract less attention than cathodes in fundamental studies because of their easy reaction kinetics, especially when working with hydrogen fuel. Hydrogen anodes require lower catalytic load than the cathode, and hydrogen transport is fast, resulting in minimal losses. Under normal operation conditions, the performance of the cell is not limited by the anode. From the system point of view, however, the anode has probably similar impact on performance and economy as the cathode because it is the electrode of the fuel, which is the costly reactant that must be stored and immediately available under special safety precautions. Anode requires, for this reason, subsystems for the hydrogen storage and conduction that penalize considerably power and energy densities.