Abstract
Using hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles equipped with proton exchange membrane fuel cells could reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation sector. Heating is necessary for a safe cold start-up process, but current methods consume a lot of electrical energy. In this research, it is proposed to heat the hydrogen by using vortex tubes to separate the compressed hydrogen into a low and a high enthalpy streams and by using a heat exchanger to pump heat from the ambient into the cold stream. This system uses only the excess pressure available from the hydrogen tank as the motive power. A real gas thermodynamic model coupled with a genetic algorithm is used to maximize the hydrogen inlet temperature to the fuel cell for three different configurations of vortex tubes and heat exchangers for a 4-passenger 100 kW fuel cell electric vehicle while minimizing the heat exchanger conductance and area product. For hydrogen stored at −30 °C, vortex tubes can increase the hydrogen feeding temperature from −1.6 °C (Joule-Thompson heating in an isenthalpic throttling valve) to up to 18.3 °C, which corresponds to a heating power of 622 W.
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