Impact of Increased Anode CO Tolerance on Performance of Hydrocarbon-Fueled PEM Fuel Cell Systems

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jenny E. Hu ◽  
Joshua B. Pearlman ◽  
Atul Bhargav ◽  
Gregory S. Jackson
Keyword(s):  
Fuel Cell ◽  
Low Temperature ◽  
Pem Fuel Cell ◽  
Pem Fuel Cells ◽  
System Level ◽  
Cell Systems ◽  
Co Tolerance ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Anode Electrocatalysts ◽  
The Impact

Recent advances in anode electrocatalysts for low-temperature PEM fuel cells are increasing tolerance for CO in the H2-rich anode stream. This study explores the impact of current day and future advances in CO-tolerant electrocatalysts on the system efficiency of low-temperature Nafion-based PEM fuel cell systems operating in conjunction with a hydrocarbon autothermal reformer and a preferential CO oxidation (PROx) reactor for CO clean-up. This study explores the effects of incomplete H2 cleanup by preferential oxidation reactors for partial CO removal, in combination with reformate-tolerant stacks. Empirical fuel cell performance models were based upon voltage-current characteristic from single-cell MEA tests at varying CO concentrations with new alloy reformate-tolerant electrocatalysts tested in conjunction with this study. A system-level model for a 5 kW maximum liquid-fueled system has been used to study the trade-offs between the improved performance with decreased CO concentration and the increased penalties from the air supply to the PROx reactor and associated reduction in H2 partial pressures to the anode. As CO tolerance is increased over current state-of-the-art Pt alloy catalysts system efficiencies improve due to higher fuel cell voltages. Furthermore, increasing CO tolerance of anode electrocatalysts allows for increased reformer efficiency by reducing PROx CO conversion requirements.

scholarly journals Review of Latest Developments in PEM Fuel Cell Research with Application to Hydrogen Powered Drones

2021 ◽  
Vol 19 ◽  
pp. 7-11
Author(s):  
B. Day ◽  
A. Pourmovahed ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Fuel Cells ◽  
High Temperature ◽  
Fuel Cell ◽  
Low Temperature ◽  
Energy Content ◽  
Pem Fuel Cell ◽  
Pem Fuel Cells ◽  
Cell Systems ◽  
Cell Technology ◽  
Current State

Fuel cells are becoming an increasingly more enticing option to power drones for extended use applications. This is because under certain conditions, fuel cell systems are able to more efficiently store fuel and, therefore, energy compared to standard battery options. This reality has been proven through multiple research efforts and is reviewed in this paper. It is necessary to review the current state of PEM fuel cell technology for drone applications to determine the extent of its limitations and feasibility. For this reason, the latest developments in low temperature and high temperature PEM fuel cells were studied including their limitations and sensitivity to contamination with a focus on drone applications. It has been reported that hydrogen powered fuel cell systems are more efficient than conventional battery applications when the energy content is higher than 4 MJ. A hybrid fuel cell and battery powertrain is preferred for the purpose of counterbalancing the deficiencies of both individual cases. Currently available products were explored, and it was found that there are fuel cell systems available that are capable of powering drones in excess of 23 kg (50 lb).

scholarly journals Review of Latest Developments in PEM Fuel Cell Research with Application to Hydrogen Powered Drones

2021 ◽  
Vol 19 ◽  
pp. 7-11
Author(s):  
B. Day ◽  
A. Pourmovahed ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Fuel Cells ◽  
High Temperature ◽  
Fuel Cell ◽  
Low Temperature ◽  
Energy Content ◽  
Pem Fuel Cell ◽  
Pem Fuel Cells ◽  
Cell Systems ◽  
Cell Technology ◽  
Current State

Fuel cells are becoming an increasingly more enticing option to power drones for extended use applications. This is because under certain conditions, fuel cell systems are able to more efficiently store fuel and, therefore, energy compared to standard battery options. This reality has been proven through multiple research efforts and is reviewed in this paper. It is necessary to review the current state of PEM fuel cell technology for drone applications to determine the extent of its limitations and feasibility. For this reason, the latest developments in low temperature and high temperature PEM fuel cells were studied including their limitations and sensitivity to contamination with a focus on drone applications. It has been reported that hydrogen powered fuel cell systems are more efficient than conventional battery applications when the energy content is higher than 4 MJ. A hybrid fuel cell and battery powertrain is preferred for the purpose of counterbalancing the deficiencies of both individual cases. Currently available products were explored, and it was found that there are fuel cell systems available that are capable of powering drones in excess of 23 kg (50 lb).

Artificial Neural Network Modeling of PEM Fuel Cells

2005 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 226-233 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shaoduan Ou ◽  
Luke E. K. Achenie
Keyword(s):  
Neural Network ◽  
Artificial Neural Network ◽  
Fuel Cells ◽  
Fuel Cell ◽  
Back Propagation ◽  
Pem Fuel Cell ◽  
Pem Fuel Cells ◽  
Optimal Operating ◽  
Cell Systems ◽  
Artificial Neural

Artificial neural network (ANN) approaches for modeling of proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cells have been investigated in this study. This type of data-driven approach is capable of inferring functional relationships among process variables (i.e., cell voltage, current density, feed concentration, airflow rate, etc.) in fuel cell systems. In our simulations, ANN models have shown to be accurate for modeling of fuel cell systems. Specifically, different approaches for ANN, including back-propagation feed-forward networks, and radial basis function networks, were considered. The back-propagation approach with the momentum term gave the best results. A study on the effect of Pt loading on the performance of a PEM fuel cell was conducted, and the simulated results show good agreement with the experimental data. Using the ANN model, an optimization model for determining optimal operating points of a PEM fuel cell has been developed. Results show the ability of the optimizer to capture the optimal operating point. The overall goal is to improve fuel cell system performance through numerical simulations and minimize the trial and error associated with laboratory experiments.

Modeling, Development and Preliminary Testing of a 2 MW PEM Fuel Cell Plant Fueled With Hydrogen From a Chlor-Alkali Industry

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefano Campanari ◽  
Giulio Guandalini ◽  
Jorg Coolegem ◽  
Jan ten Have ◽  
Patrick Hayes ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Fuel Cell ◽  
Power Plant ◽  
Pem Fuel Cell ◽  
Pem Fuel Cells ◽  
Operating Conditions ◽  
Market Potential ◽  
Experimental Results ◽  
Plant Performance ◽  
Complete Analysis ◽  
The Impact

The chlor-alkali industry produces significant amounts of hydrogen as byproduct and an interesting benefit can be obtained by feeding hydrogen to a PEM fuel cell unit, whose electricity and heat production can cover part of the chemical plant consumptions. The estimated potential of such application is up to 1100 MWel installed in the sole China, a country featuring a large presence of chlor-alkali plants. This work presents the modeling, development and first experimental results from field tests of a 2 MW PEM fuel cell power plant, built within the European project DEMCOPEM-2MW and installed in Yingkou, China as the current world’s largest PEM fuel cell installation. After a preliminary introduction to the market potential of PEM Fuel cells in the chlor-alkali industry, it is first discussed an overview of project’s MEA and fuel cell development for long life stationary applications, focusing on the design-for-manufacture process and the high-volume manufacturing route developed for the 2MW plant. The work then discusses the modeling of the power plant, including a specific lumped model predicting FC stack behavior as a function of inlet streams conditions and power set point, according to regressed polarization curves. Cells performance decay vs. lifetime reflects long-term stack test data, aiming to evidence the impact on overall energy balances and efficiency of the progression of lifetime. BOP is modeled to simulate auxiliaries consumption, pressure drops and components operating conditions. The model allows studying different operational strategies that maintain the power production during lifetime, minimizing efficiency losses; as well as to investigate the optimized operating setpoint of the plant at full load and during part-load operation. The last section of the paper discusses the experimental results, through a complete analysis of the plant performance after plant startup, including energy and mass balances and allowing to validate the model. Cumulated indicators over the first nine months of operations regarding energy production, hydrogen consumption and efficiency are also discussed.

Modeling and Performance Simulation of a Reformer and Fuel Cell System for Electricity Generation From Digester Gas Using PEM Fuel Cells

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sebastian Roa Prada ◽  
Oscar Eduardo Rueda Sanchez
Keyword(s):  
Power Generation ◽  
Wastewater Treatment ◽  
Fuel Cells ◽  
Fuel Cell ◽  
Electricity Generation ◽  
Wastewater Treatment Plants ◽  
Pem Fuel Cell ◽  
Pem Fuel Cells ◽  
Cell Systems ◽  
Power Recovery

Wastewater treatment plants help removing organic matter from wastewater, and at the same time, generate digester gas as a useful byproduct. Digester gas is rich in methane, which can be used to generate electricity. Fuel cell systems are the cleanest technology for power recovery from digester gas, since all other technologies generate electricity by burning all the digester gas. The most commonly used type of fuel cell for power generation from digester gas in wastewater treatment plants is the molten carbonate fuel cell. This type of fuel cell can tolerate the impurities usually found in digester gas, such as CO2 and H2S; however, this kind of fuel cell systems is more suitable for large wastewater treatment plants. This prevents the use of fuel cells for power generation from digester gas in wastewater treatment plants serving medium and small size cities, or even farms. This research attempts to explore solutions to make fuel cell technologies technically and economically feasible for medium and small size wastewater treatment plants. The most suitable type of fuel cells for small applications is the Proton Exchange Membrane, PEM, fuel cell. The main challenge in using PEM fuel cells for power recovery from digester gas is that they are highly sensitive to impurities in its hydrogen gas supply. Therefore, in order to use PEM fuel cells in this application, energy must be spent in cleaning the digester gas before it enters the PEM fuel cell and reformer system. Energy is also required in the form of heat by the reformer system to produce the hydrogen needed by the fuel cell. Both the energy used in the cleaning of the digester gas and the hydrogen generation process comes from burning part of the digester gas. This reduces the amount of digester gas available for hydrogen production and electricity generation, respectively. The approach followed in this investigation seeks to develop a Simulink® model of the reformer and fuel cell so that the modeling tools of Matlab® can be used to simulate the performance of the system under different operating conditions. A sensitivity analysis is carried out to identify critical operating parameters affecting the performance of the overall system. The results obtained in this work provide guidelines for future studies of performance optimization and optimal control using the tools available in Matlab®, in order to get maximum electricity generation from digester gas using PEM fuel cell systems.

Investigation of the CO tolerance mechanism at several Pt-based bimetallic anode electrocatalysts in a PEM fuel cell

2009 ◽  
Vol 54 (7) ◽  
pp. 1992-1998 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luis Gustavo S. Pereira ◽  
Valdecir A. Paganin ◽  
Edson A. Ticianelli
Keyword(s):  
Fuel Cell ◽  
Pem Fuel Cell ◽  
Tolerance Mechanism ◽  
Co Tolerance ◽  
Anode Electrocatalysts

scholarly journals Modeling and simulation for a PEM fuel cell with catalyst layers in finite thickness

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jianghui Yin
Keyword(s):  
Fuel Cells ◽  
Fuel Cell ◽  
Cell Model ◽  
Water Pressure ◽  
Finite Thickness ◽  
Pem Fuel Cell ◽  
Pem Fuel Cells ◽  
Gas Diffusion ◽  
Catalyst Layers ◽  
The Impact

A detailed non-isothermal computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model for proton electrolyte membrane (PEM) fuel cells is developed in this thesis. This model consists of the equations of continuity, momentum, energy, species concentrations, and electric potentials in different regions of a PEM fuel cell. In particular, the fairly thin catalyst layers of the fuel cell are assigned a finite thickness instead of being treated as nil thickness interfaces in other PEM fuel cell models. Various source/sink terms are presented to associate the conservation equations with the electrochemical reaction kinetics. The water balance in the membrane is modeled by coupling diffusion of water, pressure variation, and the electro-osmotic drag. The membrane swelling effect is explicitly considered the newly derived model, leading to a set of novel water and proton transport equations for a membrane under the partial hydration condition. The electron transport in the catalyst layers, gas diffusion layers and bipolar plates are also described. The PEM fuel cell model developed has been implemented into a commercial CFD software package for simulating various flow and transport phenomena arising in operational PEM fuel cells, analyzing the impact of design and operating parameters on the cell performance, and optimizing the PEM fuel cell design.

scholarly journals Modeling and simulation for a PEM fuel cell with catalyst layers in finite thickness

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jianghui Yin
Keyword(s):  
Fuel Cells ◽  
Fuel Cell ◽  
Cell Model ◽  
Water Pressure ◽  
Finite Thickness ◽  
Pem Fuel Cell ◽  
Pem Fuel Cells ◽  
Gas Diffusion ◽  
Catalyst Layers ◽  
The Impact

A detailed non-isothermal computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model for proton electrolyte membrane (PEM) fuel cells is developed in this thesis. This model consists of the equations of continuity, momentum, energy, species concentrations, and electric potentials in different regions of a PEM fuel cell. In particular, the fairly thin catalyst layers of the fuel cell are assigned a finite thickness instead of being treated as nil thickness interfaces in other PEM fuel cell models. Various source/sink terms are presented to associate the conservation equations with the electrochemical reaction kinetics. The water balance in the membrane is modeled by coupling diffusion of water, pressure variation, and the electro-osmotic drag. The membrane swelling effect is explicitly considered the newly derived model, leading to a set of novel water and proton transport equations for a membrane under the partial hydration condition. The electron transport in the catalyst layers, gas diffusion layers and bipolar plates are also described. The PEM fuel cell model developed has been implemented into a commercial CFD software package for simulating various flow and transport phenomena arising in operational PEM fuel cells, analyzing the impact of design and operating parameters on the cell performance, and optimizing the PEM fuel cell design.

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