scholarly journals The Two-Constant Cost Model and the Estimation of the Cost Performance Evolutions of the Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell Power Generation

2013 ◽  
Vol 05 (02) ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
H. F. Zhang ◽  
P. C. Pei
Author(s):  
Munzer S. Y. Ebaid ◽  
Mohamad Y. Mustafa

The design of the fuel cell plays a major role in determining their cost. It is not only the cost of materials that increases the cost of the fuel cell, but also the manufacturing techniques and the need for skilled technicians for assembling and testing the fuel cell. The work presented in this paper is part of a research work aims to design and manufacture a proton exchange membrane (PEM) modular fuel cell of 100 W output at low cost using conventional materials and production techniques, then testing the fuel cell to validate its performance. This paper will be dealing only with the design of a modular fuel cell that can be mass produced and used to set up a larger fuel cell stack for stationary applications (6 kW) which is capable of powering a medium sized household. The design for 100 W fuel cell module will include the calculations for the main dimensions of the fuel cell components, mass flow rate of reactants, water production, heat output, heat transfer and the cooling system. This work is intended to facilitate material and process selection prior to manufacturing alternatives prior to capital investment for wide-scale production. The authors believe that the paper would lead to a stimulating discussion.


Energies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (6) ◽  
pp. 1383 ◽  
Author(s):  
Liping Fan ◽  
Junyi Shi ◽  
Tian Gao

Proton exchange membrane is an important factor affecting the power generation capacity and water purification effect of microbial fuel cells. The performance of microbial fuel cells can be improved by modifying the proton exchange membrane by some suitable method. Microbial fuel cells with membranes modified by SiO2/PVDF (polyvinylidene difluoride), sulfonated PVDF and polymerized MMA (methyl methacrylate) electrolyte were tested and their power generation capacity and water purification effect were compared. The experimental results show that the three membrane modification methods can improve the power generation capacity and water purification effect of microbial fuel cells to some extent. Among them, the microbial fuel cell with the polymerized MMA modified membrane showed the best performance, in which the output voltage was 39.52 mV, and the electricity production current density was 18.82 mA/m2, which was 2224% higher than that of microbial fuel cell with the conventional Nafion membrane; and the COD (chemical oxygen demand) removal rate was 54.8%, which was 72.9% higher than that of microbial fuel cell with the conventional Nafion membrane. Modifying the membrane with the polymerized MMA is a very effective way to improve the performance of microbial fuel cells.


2012 ◽  
Vol 445 ◽  
pp. 108-113 ◽  
Author(s):  
H.J. Kwon ◽  
Y.P. Jeon ◽  
Chung Gil Kang

A Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell (PEMFC) is a type of fuel cell being developed for automotive applications as well as for stationary fuel cell applications and portable fuel cell applications. Its performance such as power density can be improved by the use of the bipolar plate with a new lightweight material which is one of core components making up PEMFC stack. Aluminum alloy has good mechanical properties not only in terms of density, electrical resistivity and thermal conductivity, but also in terms of corrosion resistant compared with stainless steel and graphite composites bipolar plate. Furthermore, the use of aluminum for a bipolar plate reduces simultaneously the cost and weight of it, and it contributes to the ease of machining. For these reason, an aluminum alloy is selected in this study. This study presents the feasibility of the simulation for the development of aluminum bipolar plates that consists of multi array micro channels. The analytical solutions obtained by the simulation are validated by the comparison with the experimental results. From the results, it is ensured that the stamping processes for the bipolar plate could be predicted and designed by the results of the by FE-Simulation.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hassan Ali Ozgoli ◽  
Sadegh Safari ◽  
Mohammad Hossein Sharifi

In this study, a novel integrated system of a Biomass Gasification (BG) system with a Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell (PEMFC) and a Vanadium Redox Flow Battery (VRB) is suggested and has focused on both power generation and storage ability of the system. Effect of some key parameters including, current density, voltage, gasification efficiency, low heating value, high heating value, oxygen equivalence ratio, efficiency has taken into consideration. Also, a water-gas shift reactor, as a preferential oxidation reactor, are facilitated to purify syngas and reduce the CO content to use in the PEMFC. The richest H2 amount and lower CO was obtained from the Sugarcane in which it provides 32 mol.% H2 and 18 mol.% CO. A sensitivity analysis of the load level impact on the PEMFC system has been studied in which at 5 kW electrical load, the electrical and the thermal efficiencies of the integrated system have an estimated 22% and 32%, respectively. Furthermore, by employing the waste heat recovery system, the overall efficiency has improved by up to 58%. Besides, the findings provide a potential mechanism for employing the proposed integrated system in distributed generation, individually in rural areas, where plenty of feedstock sources are available.


Energies ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (16) ◽  
pp. 3176 ◽  
Author(s):  
Uday K. Chakraborty

Fuel cell stack configuration optimization is known to be a problem that, in addition to presenting engineering challenges, is computationally hard. This paper presents an improved computational heuristic for solving the problem. The problem addressed in this paper is one of constrained optimization, where the goal is to seek optimal (or near-optimal) values of (i) the number of proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) to be connected in series to form a group, (ii) the number of such groups to be connected in parallel, and (iii) the cell area, such that the PEMFC assembly delivers the rated voltage at the rated power while the cost of building the assembly is as low as possible. Simulation results show that the proposed method outperforms four of the best-known methods in the literature. The improvement in performance afforded by the proposed algorithm is validated with statistical tests of significance.


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