Experimental study on the performance improvement of polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell with dual air supply

摘要

In this study, we introduce a novel way to supply the air which uses dual air supply in the cathode side of the polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell to improve the performance by reducing the concentration losses. It is significant to reduce concentration losses of the fuel cell in high current density region. Two main reasons of concentration losses are oxygen depletion along the flow path of the channel in the cathode side and produced water in the flow channel, which is so-called water flooding phenomenon. As one of the solutions to prevent lower oxygen depletion along the flow path and water flooding phenomenon, we design the serpentine flow channel with dual air supply and conduct the experiments for the performance comparison between the fuel cell with single air supply and the fuel cell with dual air supply. Furthermore, based on the performance test results, we carry out analysis for the reasons of the performance improvement by conducting the EIS test, total differential pressure test, and the dynamic voltage response test. Finally, we verify that the fuel cell with dual air supply manages better in terms of the oxygen starvation along the flow path and water flooding phenomenon. (C) 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.