Volume 28: Closing Carbon Cycles – A Transformation Process Involving Technology, Economy, and Society: Part III

Experimental Study of the Start-Up Process of Hydrogen-Oxygen PEMFC Stack With Dead-Ended Anode and Recirculation Cathode Tong Zhong, Bowen Wang, Zixuan Wang, Zhijun Peng, Qing Du, Kui Jiao

Abstract

The transient response of proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) during start-up is an important issue for a system. In this paper, the start-up process of the 6-cell stack with the dead-end anode and recirculation cathode is studied. The effects of starting load, step size on voltage variation are studied via the measurement of time evolution of the stack voltage. In addition, the different start-up responses of the single-cell under the flow-through and recirculation are compared. It is found that increasing the start-up current density and reducing the step load change can shorten the start-up time. However, the shorter start-up time will result in the lower critical membrane dehydration temperature. Compared with the gas-through mode, when the stack with dead-end anode and cathode recirculation is started, the single cell near the outlet is more likely to be flooded at the moment of high current density start-up due to the closing of anode outlet.

Keywords Proton exchange membrane fuel cell， Stack; Start-up， dead-end anode，cathode recirculation