Volume 16: Low Carbon Cities and Urban Energy Systems: Part V

Exergy Analysis of a Novel Integrated Polymer Electrolyte Membrane Fuel Cell Test System Ming Fang, JianXiao Zou

Abstract

To address the problems of low performance efficiency and high energy consumption of conventional fuel cell test systems, this study proposes a novel fuel cell test system. This test system integrates hydrogen circulation and recovery preheating, and uses a condenser to collect water generated from the stack, realizing the integrated gas-heat-water utilization of the system. The thermodynamic model of the system is also established, and the performance of the two systems are compared and evaluated using exergy analysis. The exergy loss distribution of each auxiliary component in the system as well as the net power, parasitic power, and exergy efficiency of the system are determined. The results show that the fuel cell stack, exhaust gas emission and bubble humidifiers are the locations with the largest losses in both systems, and the performance of the stack and the waste heat recovery of exhaust gas the system should be improved. When the systems are operating at 1A/cm2, the exergy loss of the novel system is 96kW, which is 28% lower than the conventional system, the net power output of the system is 80kW, which is 19% higher than conventional system, and the exergy efficiency of the system is 39%, which is 32% higher than the conventional system, while saving 309kg of humidified water per hour. Therefore, the proposed novel system can significantly improve the system performance and overall operating efficiency. The analysis of the two systems can provide a novel direction for further performance improvement of the fuel cell test system.

Keywords PEMFC test system, Thermodynamic model, Exergy analysis, Exergy loss, System effificiency