IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jeners/v16y2023i5p2111-d1076291.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Anode Nitrogen Concentration Estimation Based on Voltage Variation Characteristics for Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell Stacks

Author

Listed:
  • Ruifeng Guo

    (School of Mechanical Engineering, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing 100083, China)

  • Dongfang Chen

    (School of Mechanical Engineering, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing 100083, China
    State Key Laboratory of Automotive Safety and Energy, School of Vehicle and Mobility, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China)

  • Yuehua Li

    (School of Mechanical Engineering, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing 100083, China)

  • Wenlong Wu

    (School of Mechanical Engineering, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing 100083, China)

  • Song Hu

    (School of Mechanical Engineering, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing 100083, China)

  • Xiaoming Xu

    (School of Mechanical Engineering, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing 100083, China)

Abstract

Hydrogen energy has become an important way to solve energy crises owing to its non-pollution, high level of efficiency, and wide application. Proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) have received wide attention as an energy conversion device for hydrogen energy. The hydrogen concentration in the PEMFC anode directly determines the output voltage of the stack. The performance of the PEMFC gradually decreases due to the accumulation of nitrogen. However, the continuous circulation of anode gas and the nitrogen accumulation at the anode due to transmembrane diffusion lead to difficulties in estimating the anode gas concentration. The relationship between anode nitrogen concentration and voltage variation characteristics was studied by increasing the anode hydrogen concentration through the method of increasing nitrogen concentration and conducting experiments on a 16-cell stack. In this paper, an estimation method for nitrogen concentration in the anode is proposed to evaluate the nitrogen concentration in the anode on the basis of voltage variation characteristics, and the method was recalibrated and validated using experimental data. Due to the inhomogeneity of the gas distribution within the PEMFC stack, the mean cell voltage can provide a more accurate estimation of the anode nitrogen concentration compared to a single cell voltage. It is shown that the proposed approach can offer a new method to estimate anode nitrogen concentration. Compared with the conventional method, the new method is simpler as it does not require additional equipment or complex algorithms. In this paper, the anode nitrogen concentration was estimated by applying this method with a maximum error of only 0.35%.

Suggested Citation

  • Ruifeng Guo & Dongfang Chen & Yuehua Li & Wenlong Wu & Song Hu & Xiaoming Xu, 2023. "Anode Nitrogen Concentration Estimation Based on Voltage Variation Characteristics for Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell Stacks," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(5), pages 1-16, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jeners:v:16:y:2023:i:5:p:2111-:d:1076291
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/16/5/2111/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/16/5/2111/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Chen, Yong-Song & Yang, Chih-Wei & Lee, Jiunn-Yih, 2014. "Implementation and evaluation for anode purging of a fuel cell based on nitrogen concentration," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 1519-1524.
    2. Jiao, Jieran & Chen, Fengxiang, 2022. "Humidity estimation of vehicle proton exchange membrane fuel cell under variable operating temperature based on adaptive sliding mode observation," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 313(C).
    3. Abdul Ghani Olabi & Tabbi Wilberforce & Abdulrahman Alanazi & Parag Vichare & Enas Taha Sayed & Hussein M. Maghrabie & Khaled Elsaid & Mohammad Ali Abdelkareem, 2022. "Novel Trends in Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(14), pages 1-35, July.
    4. Chen, Dongfang & Pei, Pucheng & Meng, Yining & Ren, Peng & Li, Yuehua & Wang, Mingkai & Wang, Xizhong, 2022. "Novel extraction method of working condition spectrum for the lifetime prediction and energy management strategy evaluation of automotive fuel cells," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 255(C).
    5. Rajesh K. Ahluwalia & Xiaohua Wang & Dionissios D. Papadias & Andrew G. Star, 2022. "Performance and Total Cost of Ownership of a Fuel Cell Hybrid Mining Truck," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(1), pages 1-17, December.
    6. Mengfan Zhou & Steffen Frensch & Vincenzo Liso & Na Li & Simon Lennart Sahlin & Giovanni Cinti & Samuel Simon Araya, 2022. "Modeling the Performance Degradation of a High-Temperature PEM Fuel Cell," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(15), pages 1-21, August.
    7. Liu, Zhiyang & Chen, Jian & Liu, Hao & Yan, Chizhou & Hou, Yang & He, Qinggang & Zhang, Jiujun & Hissel, Daniel, 2020. "Anode purge management for hydrogen utilization and stack durability improvement of PEM fuel cell systems," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 275(C).
    8. Hossein Pourrahmani & Majid Siavashi & Adel Yavarinasab & Mardit Matian & Nazanin Chitgar & Ligang Wang & Jan Van herle, 2022. "A Review on the Long-Term Performance of Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells: From Degradation Modeling to the Effects of Bipolar Plates, Sealings, and Contaminants," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(14), pages 1-30, July.
    9. Hren, Robert & Vujanović, Annamaria & Van Fan, Yee & Klemeš, Jiří Jaromír & Krajnc, Damjan & Čuček, Lidija, 2023. "Hydrogen production, storage and transport for renewable energy and chemicals: An environmental footprint assessment," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 173(C).
    10. Li Chen & Keda Xu & Zuyong Yang & Zhen Yan & Zuomin Dong, 2022. "Optimal Design and Operation of Dual-Ejector PEMFC Hydrogen Supply and Circulation System," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(15), pages 1-19, July.
    11. Chen, Ben & Zhou, Haoran & He, Shaowen & Meng, Kai & Liu, Yang & Cai, Yonghua, 2021. "Numerical simulation on purge strategy of proton exchange membrane fuel cell with dead-ended anode," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 234(C).
    12. Chen, Dongfang & Pei, Pucheng & Ren, Peng & Song, Xin & Wang, He & Zhang, Lu & Wang, Mingkai, 2022. "Analytical methods for the effect of anode nitrogen concentration on performance and voltage consistency of proton exchange membrane fuel cell stack," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 258(C).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Chen, Dongfang & Pei, Pucheng & Ren, Peng & Song, Xin & Wang, He & Zhang, Lu & Wang, Mingkai, 2022. "Analytical methods for the effect of anode nitrogen concentration on performance and voltage consistency of proton exchange membrane fuel cell stack," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 258(C).
    2. Zhao, Lei & Yuan, Hao & Xie, Jiaping & Jiang, Shangfeng & Wei, Xuezhe & Tang, Wei & Ming, Pingwen & Dai, Haifeng, 2023. "Inconsistency evaluation of vehicle-oriented fuel cell stacks based on electrochemical impedance under dynamic operating conditions," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 265(C).
    3. Pei, Pucheng & Meng, Yining & Chen, Dongfang & Ren, Peng & Wang, Mingkai & Wang, Xizhong, 2023. "Lifetime prediction method of proton exchange membrane fuel cells based on current degradation law," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 265(C).
    4. Zhou, Yu & Chen, Ben & Chen, Wenshang & Deng, Qihao & Shen, Jun & Tu, Zhengkai, 2022. "A novel opposite sinusoidal wave flow channel for performance enhancement of proton exchange membrane fuel cell," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 261(PB).
    5. Jianmei Feng & Jiquan Han & Zihui Pang & Xueyuan Peng, 2023. "Designing Hydrogen Recirculation Ejectors for Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell Systems," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(3), pages 1-10, January.
    6. Lei, Gang & Zheng, Hualin & Zhang, Jun & Siong Chin, Cheng & Xu, Xinhai & Zhou, Weijiang & Zhang, Caizhi, 2023. "Analyzing characteristic and modeling of high-temperature proton exchange membrane fuel cells with CO poisoning effect," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 282(C).
    7. Enas Taha Sayed & Abdul Ghani Olabi & Abdul Hai Alami & Ali Radwan & Ayman Mdallal & Ahmed Rezk & Mohammad Ali Abdelkareem, 2023. "Renewable Energy and Energy Storage Systems," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(3), pages 1-26, February.
    8. Liu, Shihua & Li, Xiaoyang & Pang, Linjia & Geng, Tie & Guo, Yonggang & Jiang, Lin & Kang, Kejia & Wang, Xinchao & Liu, Zongyao, 2022. "Study on the effect of purging time on the performance of PEMFC with dead-ended anode under gravity," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 200(C), pages 1141-1151.
    9. Cabello González, G.M. & Toharias, Baltasar & Iranzo, Alfredo & Suárez, Christian & Rosa, Felipe, 2023. "Voltage distribution analysis and non-uniformity assessment in a 100 cm2 PEM fuel cell stack," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 282(C).
    10. Steinberger, Michael & Geiling, Johannes & Oechsner, Richard & Frey, Lothar, 2018. "Anode recirculation and purge strategies for PEM fuel cell operation with diluted hydrogen feed gas," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 232(C), pages 572-582.
    11. Xu, Liangfei & Hu, Zunyan & Fang, Chuan & Li, Jianqiu & Hong, Po & Jiang, Hongliang & Guo, Di & Ouyang, Minggao, 2021. "Anode state observation of polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell based on unscented Kalman filter and relative humidity sensor before flooding," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 168(C), pages 1294-1307.
    12. Hatem Abushammala & Muhammad Adil Masood & Salma Taqi Ghulam & Jia Mao, 2023. "On the Conversion of Paper Waste and Rejects into High-Value Materials and Energy," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(8), pages 1-21, April.
    13. Song, Yajie & Wang, Xinli & Wang, Lei & Pan, Fengwen & Chen, Wenmiao & Xi, Fuqiang, 2021. "A twin-nozzle ejector for hydrogen recirculation in wide power operation of polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell system," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 300(C).
    14. Yu, Zhongshuai & Liu, Fang & Li, Chengzhang, 2023. "Numerical study on effects of hydrogen ejector on PEMFC performances," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 285(C).
    15. Haibo Huo & Jiajie Chen & Ke Wang & Fang Wang & Guangzhe Jin & Fengxiang Chen, 2023. "State Estimation of Membrane Water Content of PEMFC Based on GA-BP Neural Network," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(11), pages 1-16, June.
    16. Chen, Ben & Cai, Yonghua & Tu, Zhengkai & Chan, Siew Hwa & Wang, Jun & Yu, Yi, 2017. "Gas purging effect on the degradation characteristic of a proton exchange membrane fuel cell with dead-ended mode operation I. With different electrolytes," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 141(C), pages 40-49.
    17. Alegre, Cinthia & Lozano, Antonio & Manso, Ángel Pérez & Álvarez-Manuel, Laura & Marzo, Florencio Fernández & Barreras, Félix, 2019. "Single cell induced starvation in a high temperature proton exchange membrane fuel cell stack," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 250(C), pages 1176-1189.
    18. Zhang, Caizhi & Liu, Zhitao & Zhang, Xiongwen & Chan, Siew Hwa & Wang, Youyi, 2016. "Dynamic performance of a high-temperature PEM (proton exchange membrane) fuel cell – Modelling and fuzzy control of purging process," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 425-432.
    19. Chen, Xin & Zhang, Ying & Xu, Sheng & Dong, Fei, 2023. "Bibliometric analysis for research trends and hotspots in heat and mass transfer and its management of proton exchange membrane fuel cells," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 333(C).
    20. Rahmani, Ebrahim & Moradi, Tofigh & Ghandehariun, Samane & Naterer, Greg F. & Ranjbar, Amirhossein, 2023. "Enhanced mass transfer and water discharge in a proton exchange membrane fuel cell with a raccoon channel flow field," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 264(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jeners:v:16:y:2023:i:5:p:2111-:d:1076291. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.