Volume 20: Sustainable Energy Solutions for a Post-COVID Recovery towards a Better Future: Part III

Cold start characteristics of proton exchange membrane fuel cells under different purge conditions Cuiru Sun，Yue Fan，Like Yue，Yu Zhu，Shixue Wang

Abstract

In this paper, a proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) with reaction area of 25 cm2 was purged with dry nitrogen before cold start at -10C. The purge time was 10, 15 and 20 min respectively. The flow rate of purge gas was 1000, 1500 and 2000 mL / min respectively. And the assembling blots torque of the fuel cell was 1 and 4 N·m respectively. Through experiments to explore the influence of contact pressure, purge gas flow rate, and purge time on the PEMFC cold start performance. The results show that for dry gas purge, the running time at 1 N·m assembling bolts torque is longer than that at 4 N·m, because the former contact pressure is smaller than latter, indicating excessive contact pressure is not conducive to cold start. At the fixed purge gas flow rate, the running time is first increased and then decreased with increasing purge time, showing a maximum value at 15 min. At the fixed purge time, the running time is first increased and then decreased with increasing purge flow rate, showing a maximum value at 1500 mL/min.

Keywords PEMFC, purge, cold start, contact pressure