Experimental study and mitigation of abnormal behavior of cell voltage in a proton exchange membrane fuel cell stack

Abstract

The aim of this study is to investigate the abnormal behavior of cell voltage in a proton exchange membrane fuel cell stack and a mitigation strategy. The proposed strategy is simple and requires only a three-way solenoid valve to replace the direct way solenoid valve of the original system. It is applied to a proton exchange membrane fuel cell stack with a dead-ended anode to verify its validity. The behavior of the cell voltages in the stack is discussed in detail, especially the cell reversal process. The results show that the proposed strategy can significantly reduce the severity of hydrogen starvation. And the maximum power of the stack is increased by 10.67%. It is a sudden increase related to cell reversal mitigation. Uneven hydrogen distribution is the cause of low cell voltage and cell reversal. This strategy increases the cell voltage by increasing the hydrogen content in the anode flow channel downstream. It also significantly reduces the fluctuations in cell voltage and improves the uniformity of the cell voltage. This experimental study contributes to mitigate hydrogen starvation in cells of proton exchange membrane fuel cell stacks in application.