A Novel High Gain Switched Capacitor Topology for Fuel Cell Vehicles with Wide Voltage Gain

The interest toward the application of fuel cells is increasing in the last years mainly due to the possibility of highly efficient decentralized clean energy generation. The output voltage of fuel-cell stacks is generally below 50 V. Consequently, low-power applications with high output voltage require a high gain for proper operation. A zero-voltage-switching (ZVS) dc–dc converter with high voltage gain is proposed for fuel cell as a front-end converter. It consists of a ZVS boost converter stage and a ZVS half-bridge converter stage and two stages are merged into a single stage. The ZVS boost converter stage provides a continuous input current and ZVS operation of the power switches. The ZVS half-bridge converter stage provides a high voltage gain. The principle of operation and system analysis are presented. Theoretical analysis and simulation result of the proposed converter were verified.

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Design and Analysis of Single Switch Transformer Less DC-DC Converter with Universal Input Voltage for Fuel Cell based Vehicles

International Journal of Advanced Research in Science, Communication and Technology ◽

10.48175/ijarsct-1558 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 1262-1272

Author(s):

R. Birundha ◽

Dr. P. Maruthapandi

Keyword(s):

Fuel Cell ◽

Output Voltage ◽

Common Ground ◽

Life Time ◽

Input Voltage ◽

High Gain ◽

Voltage Gain ◽

Voltage Drops ◽

Solar Powered ◽

Output Characteristics

A new single switch solar powered high gain step-up DC-DC converter is proposed for plug-in hybrid battery charger in Electric vehicle (EV). The proposed topology utilizes a L2C3D2network to obtain high voltage gain and reduce the voltage stress on the power switch. Additionally, the proposed converter has a universal input voltage in order to suit the soft output characteristics of the fuel cell. The fuel cell has a relatively low output voltage and high current, and it has soft output characteristics as its output voltage drops as the output current increases. Therefore, the fuel cell cannot be directly interfaced to the dc-link bus (400V) of the inverter inside the EV. This dc-dc converter has a universal input voltage feature with wide voltage gain range to suit the soft output characteristics of the fuel cell. Additionally, this dc-dc converter has to have low input current ripple to prolong the life time of the fuel /solar cell, and a common ground between its input and output ports to avoid additional EMI and maintenance safety problem. This control strategy is modelled and simulated using MATLAB -Simulink. A proto type experimental has been fabricated and tested. The experimental analysis was done and the results are in line with the simulation results.

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High Gain Boost Converter with Reduced Voltage in Capacitors for Fuel-Cells Energy Generation Systems

Electronics ◽

10.3390/electronics9091480 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 9 (9) ◽

pp. 1480 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Javier Loranca-Coutiño ◽

Carlos A. Villarreal-Hernandez ◽

Jonathan C. Mayo-Maldonado ◽

Jesús E. Valdez-Resendiz ◽

Adolfo R. Lopez-Nuñez ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Renewable Energy ◽

Fuel Cell ◽

Output Voltage ◽

High Gain ◽

Boost Converter ◽

Voltage Gain ◽

Gain Function ◽

Energy Applications ◽

Major Benefit ◽

Desirable Feature

This work presents a power-electronics based system for renewable energy applications, the system is driven with an only one switch quadratic type boost converter, the discussed converter is based on a stack of switching stages which provide a large voltage gain, a desirable feature for fuel cell generation systems, the converters gain function is the quadratic boost-type converters; furthermore, the topology can be extended. The major benefit of the topology is that there is not a capacitor that sustains the entire output voltage, in contrast to other similar topologies in which there is a capacitor rated to the output port voltage, there is no high voltage capacitor in this system. Experimental verification is presented to confirm the system principles; experiments included a fuel cell emulator that was built and used for the experiments.

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A Non-isolated High-gain DC/DC Converter Suitable for Fuel Cell Vehicles

Journal of Electrical Engineering and Technology ◽

10.1007/s42835-021-00785-7 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Meilan Zhou ◽

Jun Fu ◽

Xiaogang Wu ◽

Mingliang Yang ◽

Zhigang Zhang

Keyword(s):

Fuel Cell ◽

High Gain ◽

Fuel Cell Vehicles

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Extendable PSLC Network-Based High-Gain DC–DC Converter with Switched-Capacitor Circuit for Microbial Fuel Cell

Journal of Circuits System and Computers ◽

10.1142/s021812662150239x ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 2150239

Author(s):

J. Divya Navamani ◽

Rishabh Mrinal ◽

Anirudh Nair ◽

Sagar Chouhan

Keyword(s):

Fuel Cell ◽

Low Power ◽

Microbial Fuel Cell ◽

High Gain ◽

Switched Capacitor ◽

Storage Unit ◽

Power Sources ◽

Energy Storage Unit ◽

High Voltage Gain ◽

Voltage Conversion

This paper proposes a model to yield power from the low-power sources like microbial fuel cell (MFC). The structure of the MFC with a suitable energy storage unit is proposed and discussed in detail. The prototype of the MFC model with the charge pump (switched-capacitor) circuit is implemented and tested for an output voltage of 5[Formula: see text]V. Additionally, a novel high-step-up converter is suggested for the low-power applications. It employs a passive switched-inductor–capacitor cell (PSLC), which makes the switching of the LC network simple. This high-gain converter is derived by replacing the diode in the primary switched inductor cell with a capacitor. Compared to several topologies with similar voltage conversion ratio in the literature, the derived converter can achieve high voltage gain with the lesser component count. This study directs to propose a compact and lightweight DC–DC converter. Since the suggested topology is for low-power applications, a 5-W prototype is tested. The implemented setup is most appropriate for microbial fuel cell application, which is closely related to environmental stewardship.

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