Forced Air-Breathing PEMFC Stacks

Abstract EN

Air-breathing fuel cells have a great potential as power sources for various electronic devices.

They differ from conventional fuel cells in which the cells take up oxygen from ambient air by active or passive methods.

The air flow occurs through the channels due to concentration and temperature gradient between the cell and the ambient conditions.

However developing a stack is very difficult as the individual cell performance may not be uniform.

In order to make such a system more realistic, an open-cathode forced air-breathing stacks were developed by making appropriate channel dimensions for the air flow for uniform performance in a stack.

At CFCT-ARCI (Centre for Fuel Cell Technology-ARC International) we have developed forced air-breathing fuel cell stacks with varying capacity ranging from 50 watts to 1500 watts.

The performance of the stack was analysed based on the air flow, humidity, stability, and so forth, The major advantage of the system is the reduced number of bipolar plates and thereby reduction in volume and weight.

However, the thermal management is a challenge due to the non-availability of sufficient air flow to remove the heat from the system during continuous operation.

These results will be discussed in this paper.