IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jeners/v17y2024i11p2530-d1400756.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Investigation of Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell Performance by Exploring the Synergistic Effects of Reaction Parameters via Power Curve and Impedance Spectroscopy Analysis

Author

Listed:
  • Gozde Ustuner

    (Materials Science and Chemical Engineering Department, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY 11794, USA
    Institute of Gas Innovation and Technology, Advanced Energy Research and Technology, Stony Brook, NY 11794, USA
    Mechanical Engineering Technology Department, Farmingdale State College, Farmingdale, NY 11735, USA)

  • Yue Hung

    (Mechanical Engineering Technology Department, Farmingdale State College, Farmingdale, NY 11735, USA)

  • Devinder Mahajan

    (Materials Science and Chemical Engineering Department, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY 11794, USA
    Institute of Gas Innovation and Technology, Advanced Energy Research and Technology, Stony Brook, NY 11794, USA)

Abstract

In this paper, a comprehensive analysis of the parameters that affect polymer electrolyte membrane fuel-cell performance is presented. Experiments were conducted on a single fuel cell membrane with an active area of 5 cm 2 . To study the fuel cell operation, parametric studies of temperature, pressure and relative humidity values were conducted under cyclic voltammetry for impedance analysis. The impact of the behavior of all three parameters on the fuel-cell performance were recorded and analyzed. As the temperature increased from 50 °C to 74 °C, the Pt catalyst surface areas demonstrated lower activation losses as the membrane conductivity increased. It is confirmed that an increase in temperature accompanied higher humidity levels to provide sufficient cell hydration that resulted in a higher performance output. The impedance measurements indicate that low humidity levels resulted in higher cell resistance and mass transport losses. As the back pressure increased, the membrane resistance decreased, which also reduced mass transport losses. The results indicate that the important factors affecting the fuel cell performance are mass transport limitation and membrane resistance. Based on the results of this study, the optimum performance can be achieved by operating at higher pressures and temperatures with humidified reactant gases.

Suggested Citation

  • Gozde Ustuner & Yue Hung & Devinder Mahajan, 2024. "Investigation of Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell Performance by Exploring the Synergistic Effects of Reaction Parameters via Power Curve and Impedance Spectroscopy Analysis," Energies, MDPI, vol. 17(11), pages 1-14, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jeners:v:17:y:2024:i:11:p:2530-:d:1400756
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/17/11/2530/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/17/11/2530/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Wang, Yun & Chen, Ken S. & Mishler, Jeffrey & Cho, Sung Chan & Adroher, Xavier Cordobes, 2011. "A review of polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells: Technology, applications, and needs on fundamental research," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 88(4), pages 981-1007, April.
    2. Brian C. H. Steele & Angelika Heinzel, 2001. "Materials for fuel-cell technologies," Nature, Nature, vol. 414(6861), pages 345-352, November.
    3. Song Yan & Mingyang Yang & Chuanyu Sun & Sichuan Xu, 2023. "Liquid Water Characteristics in the Compressed Gradient Porosity Gas Diffusion Layer of Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells Using the Lattice Boltzmann Method," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(16), pages 1-18, August.
    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. Zhao, Wenjuan & Lin, Bin & Wang, Hao & Wang, Faze & Asghar, Muhammad Imran & Wang, Jun & Zhu, Bin & Lund, Peter, 2024. "A half-metallic heterostructure fuel cell with high performance," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 232(C).
    2. Tingke Fang & Coleman Vairin & Annette von Jouanne & Emmanuel Agamloh & Alex Yokochi, 2024. "Review of Fuel-Cell Electric Vehicles," Energies, MDPI, vol. 17(9), pages 1-25, April.
    3. Pandu Ranga Tirumalasetti & Fang-Bor Weng & Mangaliso Menzi Dlamini & Chia-Hung Chen, 2024. "Numerical Simulation of Double Layered Wire Mesh Integration on the Cathode for a Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell (PEMFC)," Energies, MDPI, vol. 17(2), pages 1-15, January.
    4. Parnian, Mohammad Javad & Rowshanzamir, Soosan & Gashoul, Fatemeh, 2017. "Comprehensive investigation of physicochemical and electrochemical properties of sulfonated poly (ether ether ketone) membranes with different degrees of sulfonation for proton exchange membrane fuel ," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 125(C), pages 614-628.
    5. Zhang, Xiaoqing & Yang, Jiapei & Ma, Xiao & Zhuge, Weilin & Shuai, Shijin, 2022. "Modelling and analysis on effects of penetration of microporous layer into gas diffusion layer in PEM fuel cells: Focusing on mass transport," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 254(PA).
    6. Vasallo, Manuel Jesús & Bravo, José Manuel & Andújar, José Manuel, 2013. "Optimal sizing for UPS systems based on batteries and/or fuel cell," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 170-181.
    7. Nicolas Muck & Christoph David & Torsten Knöri, 2023. "Integrating Fiber Sensing for Spatially Resolved Temperature Measurement in Fuel Cells," Energies, MDPI, vol. 17(1), pages 1-17, December.
    8. Xu, Yuan-wu & Wu, Xiao-long & Zhong, Xiao-bo & Zhao, Dong-qi & Sorrentino, Marco & Jiang, Jianhua & Jiang, Chang & Fu, Xiaowei & Li, Xi, 2021. "Mechanism model-based and data-driven approach for the diagnosis of solid oxide fuel cell stack leakage," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 286(C).
    9. Teng Teng & Xin Zhang & Qicheng Xue & Baodi Zhang, 2024. "Research of Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell Modeling on Concentration Polarization under Variable-Temperature Operating Conditions," Energies, MDPI, vol. 17(3), pages 1-17, February.
    10. Yuan, Wei & Tang, Yong & Yang, Xiaojun & Wan, Zhenping, 2012. "Porous metal materials for polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells – A review," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 309-329.
    11. Luka Mihanović & Željko Penga & Lei Xing & Viktor Hacker, 2021. "Combining Baffles and Secondary Porous Layers for Performance Enhancement of Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cells," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(12), pages 1-28, June.
    12. Lin, Jui-Yen & Shih, Yu-Jen & Chen, Po-Yen & Huang, Yao-Hui, 2016. "Precipitation recovery of boron from aqueous solution by chemical oxo-precipitation at room temperature," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 164(C), pages 1052-1058.
    13. Wang, Yujie & Sun, Zhendong & Chen, Zonghai, 2019. "Energy management strategy for battery/supercapacitor/fuel cell hybrid source vehicles based on finite state machine," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 254(C).
    14. Wang, Junye, 2015. "Theory and practice of flow field designs for fuel cell scaling-up: A critical review," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 157(C), pages 640-663.
    15. Saurabh Singh & Raghvendra Pandey & Sabrina Presto & Maria Paola Carpanese & Antonio Barbucci & Massimo Viviani & Prabhakar Singh, 2019. "Suitability of Sm 3+ - Substituted SrTiO 3 as Anode Materials for Solid Oxide Fuel Cells: A Correlation between Structural and Electrical Properties," Energies, MDPI, vol. 12(21), pages 1-16, October.
    16. Bao, Zhiming & Niu, Zhiqiang & Jiao, Kui, 2020. "Gas distribution and droplet removal of metal foam flow field for proton exchange membrane fuel cells," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 280(C).
    17. Vinoth Kumar, R. & Khandale, A.P., 2022. "A review on recent progress and selection of cobalt-based cathode materials for low temperature-solid oxide fuel cells," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 156(C).
    18. Xing, Lei & Du, Shangfeng & Chen, Rui & Mamlouk, Mohamed & Scott, Keith, 2016. "Anode partial flooding modelling of proton exchange membrane fuel cells: Model development and validation," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 80-95.
    19. Jiao, Kui & Bachman, John & Zhou, Yibo & Park, Jae Wan, 2014. "Effect of induced cross flow on flow pattern and performance of proton exchange membrane fuel cell," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 75-82.
    20. Saeidfar, Asal & Yesilyurt, Serhat, 2023. "Numerical investigation of the effects of catalyst layer composition and channel to rib width ratios for low platinum loaded PEMFCs," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 339(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:17:y:2024:i:11:p:2530-:d:1400756. 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.